Kestrels and the Bigger Mom

Sunday, March 27, 2005

BACK TO THE BIG MOM QUESTION

BACK TO THE BIG MOM QUESTION

Steve Watson, the Pasadena GHO guy, is also involved with a pair of kestrels that have settled into a box near his house. He comments below on the raptor sexual dimorphism conundrum, based on the fact that kestrels are much, much smaller than redtails.:

"As an aside to the size discrepancy, I read up on kestrels...they are sexually dimorphic in size, but by a much smaller amount...female is only 10% larger than the male. I wonder if there is a relationship between absolute body size and dimorphic difference (smaller raptors are less sexually dimorphic than larger ones)? Hmmmm...if so, I'd have to think about why that might be the case...."