London: Sexy dads produce sexy sons, in the insect world at least. Researchers in Britain have carried out a study and found that attractiveness is hereditary in insects as all males pass on their showy traits to their offsprings, the ScienceDaily reported.

"There is clearly a benefit to female insects in having sexy sons that are more likely to attract an attractive mate and produce offspring," lead researcher Dr David Hosken was quoted as saying.

In fact, the researchers at the University of Exeter came to the conclusion after analysing fruitflies. They paired up males and females at random and found the length of time it took for the insects to mate ranged from just two minutes to two hours. Female fruitflies needed time to make themselves accessible to males for mating to take place, so males could not force copulation.

According to their findings, after males had mated with around three females each, their sons who were full and half brothers, were paired with single females. Again, the time for copulation to occur was recorded - this allowed the team to look at the genetic component of attractiveness.

The researchers found that "attractiveness is hereditary, passed on from father to son" - the results have been published in the Current Biology journal. Although not tested, Dr Hosken believes his findings could be applied to humans too. "It s very much possible that attractiveness is hereditable across the animal kingdom. It could even be the case in humans that the sexiest dads also have the most desirable sons."

Source : PTI