Love affairs badly affect the survival of parrots

  •  Swift parrot with mate
Females are very scarce
 

Tasmania’s cute little Swift parrots (Lathamus discolor) are normally monogamous, but they have recently suffered from gender-selective predation. The nesting females and chicks are killed by roaming possums, which means that males significantly outnumber females. This results in love affairs, fights among males, shared paternity, and eventually less chicks to continue the species because the grown ups are too busy to take care of them.