Sexual preference in female rats: I. Choices in tests with copulation

Abstract

A total of 10 females was tested for tendencies to repeat choices of the same four males during tests with copulation. The females were tested on three daily trials once a week for three weeks. The results indicated that the Long-Evans females repeated choices of males slightly in the last trial each day but chose randomly from week to week. The Sprague-Dawley females showed a marked tendency to return to the same males in the last week but chose males randomly when only the trials were considered. Note 1. This research was suppurted in part by the Hancock FoundatlDn.

Female regulation and choice in the copulatory behavior of montane voles (Microtus montanus).

“…In this respect, these rodents resemble nonhuman primates and dogs (see Beach, 1970;Beach & Le-Boeuf, 1967;LeBoeuf, 1967). These findings are also consistent with rather limited data on laboratory rats indicative of female choice during copulation with respect to both different individual intact males (French et al, 1972;Law & Gerbrandt, 1967) and castrated versus intact males (Drewett, 1973;Drewett & Spiteri, 1979). As indicated above, the amount of copulatory stimulation delivered by males appears to be an important basis for discrimination by females.…”

“…The fact that a female selectively approaches one of two males is not definitive evidence of female choice if one of the two males is relatively inaccessible as the result of male-male competition (Dewsbury, 1981). Therefore, in the present work a procedure was developed wherein two males were tethered (see Law & Gerbrandt, 1967;Perper, 1978) so that female choice could be given maximal expression. In Experiment 1, the possibility of female choice was studied with no explicit manipulation of the stimulus males.…”