MALE obsession with size appears to be universal. Male sexual traits that are attractive to females of the species, such as antlers or a peacock’s feathery display, become disproportionately large as body size increases.
Most body parts grow in proportion with each other as individuals of a species become larger, but it has long been known that the visual markers of reproductive prowess are a special case. Now, in the largest survey to date, James Brown of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and his colleagues have examined the proportions of 284 ornament-bearing species to see whether the tendency…
