According to research by scientists at Oxford and Lund Universities, the fact that many males provide paternal care to their offspring even when they are not of the same blood could have an evolutionary explanation. The work indicates that instead of doing it out of "confusion", the males are much more tolerant and cunning than was supposed and decide who they provide their care to based on how likely it is that a female will put the horns on them . Analyzing 62 works that involved 48 species of insects, fish, birds and mammals, the researchers discovered that if the females were promiscuous, the involvement of males in the care of the offspring was reduced by 12% . That is, males contribute to parental care depending on the fidelity they assume to their partners, according to the researchers in the journal PLOS Biology .
Thus, males are willing to take care of “illegitimate” children, of other parents, if they appreciate that the risk of their partner laying the horns is low or if they consider that the care of the offspring does not reduce the possibilities of future reproductive success. Moreover, when in doubt, males also value the losses that would mean that they were wrong to "judge" their partner and ignore their royal offspring.
On the contrary, paternal abandonment occurs especially when the risk of infidelity is very high and care decreases the future reproductive success of the male.
