Scientists have revealed that peacocks make fake sex sounds to attract peahens' attention.
According to the researchers from University of British Columbia, Canada, when a male has successfully attracted peahen, it rushes at her making a distinctive hooting call before attempting to mate, the BBC reported.
Dr Roslyn Dakin said that these calls are much louder than it needs to be to communicate with just the female it is trying to mate with.
She found that males would make the "copulatory call" when they were nowhere near a female, yet females would be attracted by the sound and that fake calls are "surprisingly common" among 60 percent of the males, which were also the most prolific breeders.
Dakin said that the males may have learned that the deception brings the reward of female company and by pretending they are mating when they are not, the birds could convince females that they are more sexually active.
The study was published in The American Naturalist.
