"The answer is because, alongside natural selection, there is another mechanism at play: sexual selection. **Natural selection ensures that a species adapts optimally to its environment, sexual selection supplies the characteristics to give a species the greatest chance of mating**. Therefore, sexual selection exaggerates some characteristics without natural selection undoing them. Think of the long, colourful tails of birds of paradise or peacocks. **For one reason or another, female birds like a long tail, so a male with a long tail has more chance of reproducing, even if such an impractical attachment increases the risk of him being caught by a predator**." ([Location 349](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089QJDCV4&location=349)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[evolution]], [[natural-selection]], [[sexual-selection]], [[gender]], [[sexuality]], **Source** -- [[20250426112058 - B - Members Club]]