Female beetle uses unsexy pheromones to calm horny dudes

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If a female burying beetle doesn’t want sex, none of the males around her can get turned on. That’s because she emits pheromones that nip a male's sexual desire in the bud — temporarily, at least.

A report in Nature Communications this week reveals that female burying beetles who are caring for larvae release extremely unsexy chemical signals. When males pick up on theses signals through their antennae, they quickly stop feeling the urge to get it on. But don't feel too bad for the male burying beetles; the pheromone also stops females from producing eggs so, from an evolutionary standpoint, mating would be pretty fruitless. And really there's something quite lovely about this adaptation. Because burying beetles co-parent their offspring, the pheromone helps them focus on what's important: rearing successful youngins.

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