Dave Hone

And lo and behold, they have giant frills and giant horns.

So there are things which we think operate closer to that.

So there are, these are the two kind of classic ideas of sexual selection, and both are probably true to certain degrees in various different species.

One is the honest signal, or it's the kind of a handicap hypothesis, because you're holding yourself back whilst proving you can still do it.

I ran the marathon, you know, carrying a couple of weights.

You're obviously stronger than the guy who ran the marathon without.

Um, and so that's why it's an honest signal and it's why it's a handicap.

But the other one is what's called the sexy sons hypothesis.

And the idea is a female might just find a male attractive for no other reason than random.

There is,

some component of her brain or whatever it may be that that just looks cool.

And you can actually sort of get this as a human.

Like, forget human beauty.

You can look at a bottle and go, that bottle's kind of nice and that bottle's kind of ugly.

Where do you put, like, birds are interesting with this.

Where do you put peacock feathers?

So they're probably more handicap hypothesis because the colors that go into them and the sheer size and shape.

And these things basically can't fly.

They're really vulnerable to predators.

Probably not entirely.