Reproduction
The fierce sexual competition between males is due to an unbalanced sex ratio. A female attracts males by moving her tongue around to initiate mating. If the male does not respond, she moves on to another mate. The average gestation period is 190 days. The infant will stay with the mother for 18–24 months. After males reach sexual maturity, they are expelled from their natal group. The male must then invade a foreign group. There, the male kills off the other leader and whatever offspring the first leader sired. By doing this, the male is killing any possible competition. Less than 25% of offspring survive male invasions.
Read more about this topic: Venezuelan Red Howler
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The atmosphere parents wish to create when talking with children about birth and reproduction is warm, honest, and reassuring, one that tells children they are free to ask questions as often as they need to, and you will answer them as lovingly as you know how.”
—Joanna Cole (20th century)
“It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)