Oestrous red deer hinds prefer male roars with higher fundamental frequencies.

Female red deer prefer the roars of larger males.

Surprisingly little is known about the role of acoustic cues in mammal female mate choice. Here, we examine the response of female red deer (Cervus elaphus) to male roars in which an acoustic cue to body size, the formants, has been re-scaled to simulate different size callers. Our results show that oestrous red deer hinds prefer roars simulating larger callers and constitute the first evidence...

Sounds big to me

Many studies of animal sound communications have confirmed that vocal signals conveying some aspect of male quality can be used by females to influence their mate choice. Amongst mammals, however, there has been little evidence to show conclusively that this can be the case. But the roaring of red deer stags is known to affect the outcome of male–male interactions, advance female ovulation and ...

Do Red Deer Stags (Cervus elaphus) Use Roar Fundamental Frequency (F0) to Assess Rivals?

It is well established that in humans, male voices are disproportionately lower pitched than female voices, and recent studies suggest that this dimorphism in fundamental frequency (F0) results from both intrasexual (male competition) and intersexual (female mate choice) selection for lower pitched voices in men. However, comparative investigations indicate that sexual dimorphism in F0 is not u...

Effect of combined source (F0) and filter (formant) variation on red deer hind responses to male roars.

Studying female response to variation in single acoustic components has provided important insights into how sexual selection operates on male acoustic signals. However, since vocal signals are typically composed of independent components, it is important to account for possible interactions between the studied parameter and other relevant acoustic features of vocal signals. Here, two key compo...

Do red deer hinds prefer stags that produce harsh roars in mate choice contexts?