Sex differences in the flesh-eating preferences of wild house mice.

Freshly asphyxiated male or female house mice and prairie deer mice were presented to hungry male or female wild-strain house mice. Male subjects ate significantly more conspecific than contraspecific flesh, but females showed no statistically reliable preference. This sex difference, which is essentially opposite that previously reported in deer mice, is related to species-specific sex differences in aggressiveness using a response-competition model.