MALES are supposed to be the pushy ones when it comes to sex, but a study of African topi antelopes shows that females can be the harassers too. The males often have to fight off females they have already mated with so that they can pursue newer mates.
鈥淲hen biologists talk about the 鈥榖attle of the sexes鈥� they often tacitly assume that the battle is between persistent males who always want to mate and females who don鈥檛,鈥� says Jakob Bro-J酶rgensen at the Zoological Society of London. But Bro-J酶rgensen has now observed such behaviour in female African topi antelope in Kenya, which interfere with copulating pairs to compete for the male.
He suggests this might be an attempt to get more sperm and so ensure fertilisation. On average, the females mate 11 times in a day with four different males (, ).
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