By Susan Milius
From Snowbird, Utah, at a meeting of the Animal Behavior Society
Female ring-tailed lemurs may get “masculinized” by well-timed little rises in prenatal hormones, says Christine Drea.
A researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C., Drea has studied female spotted hyenas, which display a suite of traits typically described as masculine. Female hyenas dominate the species’ rough-and-tumble social life and even grow penislike genitalia. Analyses of the animals’ hormones have linked these traits to a system influenced by prenatal exposure in females to extra androgens, which are usually masculinizing hormones.