Mothers Who Sleep Around Produce Sexier Sons, Mouse Study Finds

Female mice who slept around with multiple mice were found to have more attractive offspring, however, the sons had a shorter life span compared to those born from less attractive mothers, a new study says.

Biologists at the University of Utah have found that male offspring of promiscuous females gave off stronger sex pheromones than the descendents of mice with only one partner, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.

"If your sons are particularly sexy, and mate more than they would otherwise, it's helping get your genes more efficiently into the next generation," said Wayne Potts, biology professor at the University of Utah and senior author of the study. "Only recently have we started to understand that environmental conditions experienced by parents can influence the characteristics of their offspring. This study is one of the first to show this kind of 'epigenetic' process working in a way that increases the mating success of sons."

Researchers conducted the experiment by placing mice in little barns, which were divided by mesh in order to construct territories but allowed them to climb over the mesh to reach feeding stations, nesting places and drinking water.

They also made some of the territories more desirable than others, creating social competition.

The researchers learnt that the sons whose parents freely mated in the mouse barns produced 31 per cent more pheromones than male mice from caged monogamous parents.The discoveries indicate a more common approach to breed jeopardized species in bondage, specialists say.

"Assuming that your offspring are especially attractive, and mate more than they might any other way, its helping get your genes all the more effectively into the following era," study guide Wayne Potts, a researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said in an articulation.