Breeding pair is a pair of

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

s which cooperate over time to produce offspring with some form of a bond between the individuals.Gaston, A. J.
The evolution of group territorial behavior and cooperative breeding
" The American Naturalist 112.988 (1978): 1091-1100. For example, many

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s mate for a breeding season or sometimes for life. They may share some or all of the tasks involved: for example, a breeding pair of birds may split building a nest, incubating the

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s and feeding and protecting the young. The term is not generally used when a

male Male (Mars symbol, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot sexual reproduction, repro ...

has a

harem Harem ( Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family") refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A har ...

female Female (symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females a ...

s, such as with mountain gorillas. True breeding pairs are usually found only in

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxon, taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with vertebral column, backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the ...

s, but there are notable exceptions, such as the

Lord Howe Island stick insect ''Dryococelus australis'', commonly known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect or tree lobster, is a species of stick insect that lives on the Lord Howe Island Group. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Dryococelus''. Thought to be ex ...

. True breeding pairs are rare in amphibians or reptiles, although the Australian

Shingleback ''Tiliqua rugosa'', most commonly known as the shingleback lizard or bobtail lizard, is a short-tailed, slow-moving species of blue-tongued skink (genus ''Tiliqua'') endemic to Australia. It is commonly known as the shingleback or sleepy lizar ...

is one exception with long-term pair-bonds. Some fish form short term pairs and the

French angelfish The French angelfish (''Pomacanthus paru'') is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a marine angelfish belonging to the family Pomacanthidae. It occurs in the Western Atlantic Ocean. Description The French angelfish has a laterally compresse ...

is thought to pair-bond over a long term. True breeding pairs are quite common in

s. Breeding pair arrangements are rare in mammals, where the prevailing patterns are either that the male and female only meet for copulation (e.g.

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...

) or that dominant males have a

of females (e.g.

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the f ...

References

{{Breed Animal breeding Mating Reproduction in animals

See also

References