How Lemurs Flirt

When it comes to flirting with women, men prepare themselves to look good and smell good. They comb their hair, wear nice clothes and perfume in order to attract the girl they really like.

For lemurs, it’s almost the same, minus the “comb your hair and wear nice clothes'' part. Like a human being who wants to attract a potential mate, these male lemurs wear perfume to attract their female counterparts.

Males produce this smelly secret ingredient in their wrist glands, which they then rub on their tails and waft as a scent cloud toward a likely mate. Secretions from these and other glands are commonly used by male lemurs to communicate with other males — to mark territory, demonstrate their social rank or broadcast their readiness for breeding — but scientists recently discovered that lemurs produce additional chemicals that are used to "stink flirt" with females during their yearly mating season.

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… For most of the year, this liquid smelled "bitter," "leathery" and "green" to the human nose, the researchers wrote in the study. But during the breeding season, it smelled "more fruity, floral and sweet."

Check out more details about this fragrant story over at Live Science.

(Image Credit: Mathias Appel/ Wikimedia Commons)