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[–]al-Amira 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, there's "mate choice" one of the driving factors for sexual selection (according to some). Mate choice is essentially one of the individuals (more oftan than not females) determining whom to have offspring with based on their partner's qualities, resources and phenotypes. However, when I'm not sure I would entirely equate it to what humans tend to view as preferences - but mate selection also happens in humans (probably just not as functional in modern society though), just not in the sense of dating ads that says "no one under 1.80m". There's a good book on mate choice, called... "Mate choice" by Patrick Bateson. On the other hand, there are those who argue that mate choice is just simply natural selection and that ascribing the ability to judge standards of beauty to animals is just too much, and there are studies amongst peafowl that both show and don't show that peahens choose their mating partner based on the peacock's train.

I doubt you'll find any animal being into shy animals though, it doesn't seem like a particularly good trait to have in a courting ritual.