Male peacocks have tail feathers that make up about 60% of their body length. During the mating season they shake these feathers in front of females

Question

Longer feathers produce a
larger volume of rustling sound for a given shaking rate, but they are also heavier, and thus
require more energy to shake at a given rate than shorter feathers. This suggests that
______________.
A. selective pressures will continue selection
for longer and longer peacock tails
B. selective pressures will always result in
shorter peacock tails to reduce the energetic
cost of shaking
C. there are selective pressures against too
long or too short of a tail, which results in the
variable tail lengths
D. tail length is completely random because
there are selective pressures both for and
against longer tails

Answer 1

C