Why stick with just one member of the opposite sex when there are so many to choose from?

Love and tax breaks may be the reasons we cite today, but our primate ancestors had other motivations. Preventing a newborn from being killed by an unrelated male was top of the list. Social monogamy – when a male and female of the species stick together for the long term, although may mate with others – is rare in mammals generally. However, it occurs in over a quarter of primate species, including humans, gibbons and many New World monkeys, such as titis. To investigate what originally drove us to establish such pair bonds, a team led by Kit Opie of University College London and Susanne Shultz from the University of Manchester, UK, gathered data on the mating behaviour of 230 primate species. They selected behavioural traits associated with several possible evolutionary drivers of monogamy, including the risk of infanticide, the need for paternal care and the potential for guarding female mates. 

By Mairi Macleod /more