Breeding pair is a pair of animals which cooperate over time to produce offspring with some form of a bond between the individuals. For example, many birds mate for a breeding season or sometimes for life. They may share some or all of the tasks involved: building a nest, incubating the eggs and feeding and protecting the young. The term is not generally used when a male has a harem (zoology) of females, such as with mountain gorillas.
True breeding pairs are usually found only in vertebrates, but there are notable exceptions, such as the Lord Howe Island stick insect. True breeding pairs are rare in amphibians or reptiles, but fairly common with fish (e.g. discus) and especially birds. Breeding pair arrangements are rare in mammals, where the prevailing patterns are either that the male and female only meet for copulation (e.g. brown bear) or that dominant males have a harem (zoology) of females (e.g. walrus).
Famous quotes containing the words breeding and/or pair:
“Good breeding ... differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)