Anim. Behav., 1998, 55, 41–50 Mate choice by female red junglefowl: the issues of multiple ornaments and fluctuating asymmetry J. DAVID LIGON, REBECCA KIMBALL & MICHELE MEROLA-ZWARTJES Department of Biology, The University of New M exico ( R eceived 19 M arch 1996; initial acceptance 16 July 1996; final acceptance 6 M arch 1997; M S. number: 7557) Abstract. The significance of multiple ornaments of male birds and other animals is currently not well understood. Male red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, possess a number of morphological traits that appear to be ornamental in nature. These traits include components of the colourful plumage and fleshy structures on the face and head, the single, medially-located comb, paired wattles and ear lappets. Some studies have implicated the comb in the mate choice decisions of female junglefowl, and some have also indicated that plumage of males is not important in this regard. To test for a possible role of other male morphological ornaments in female mate choice, and to evaluate the earlier counterintuitive findings concerning male plumage, we controlled comb size, and experimentally manipulated plumage, wattles and ear lappets of male red junglefowl. We also tested responses of female junglefowl to asymmetry of bilaterally paired male ornaments by manipulating the symmetry of the paired wattles, ear lappets and the ornate hackle feathers of the neck. None of these manipulations provided evidence that female red junglefowl are sensitive to asymmetry of paired ornaments of males. A series of tests involving a male with pronounced body asymmetry likewise produced negative results. In contrast to some other studies on birds, we obtained no evidence that female red junglefowl use symmetry of either ornamental or non-ornamental traits in mate choice decisions. Comb size, the only male trait shown to be used by females, both in the present study and in some earlier ones, did not correlate significantly with natural asymmetry in any of several measured traits.  1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Males of most species of birds have more than one kind of morphological ornament thought to be used in sexual selection. Ornaments of birds take many forms. In addition to colourful and struc- turally modified plumage, species from many orders have bare skin on the face or head, which is often colourful and structurally specialized (e.g. the cock’s comb). Although male birds typically have more than one display trait, consideration of multiple ornaments has only recently begun to be incorporated into models of sexual selection (e.g. Zuk et al. 1992; Møller & Pomiankowski 1993a ; Hill 1994; Johnstone 1995; Andersson & Iwasa 1996). Møller & Pomiankowski (1993a , p. 167) offered three hypotheses to explain multiple ornaments. (1) The multiple message hypothesis ‘. . . proposes that each display reflects a single property of the overall quality of an animal. This is likely to be the case for ornaments that respond to condition on different time scales.’ (2) The redundant signal hypothesis ‘. . . suggests that each ornament gives a partial indication of condition ...’, and that ‘females pay equal attention to the expression of all the secondary sex traits in order to obtain an estimate of overall male condition’. (3) The unreliable signal hypothesis ‘. . . argues that some ornaments are unreliable indicators of overall condition and are only maintained because they are relatively uncostly to produce and there is a weak female preference for them. This predicts that multiple sexual ornaments should be particu- larly common in taxa with the most intense sexual selection (i.e. lekking and other polygynous taxa).’ Correspondence: J. D. Ligon, Department of Biology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, U.S.A. (email: jdligon@unm.edu). M. Merola- Zwartjes is now at the Department of Wildlife Manage- ment, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, U.S.A. 0003–3472/98/010041+ 10 $25.00/0/ar970582  1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour 41