When women are at their most fertile, they dress to impress, so says recent American research.
The study involved 30 students and found that as ovulation approached, they were more likely to more fashionable clothes, show more flesh, as well as chuck away the trousers and replace them with skirts and don attractive jewellery .
The findings are in contrast to the conventional wisdom that humans hide all signs of when they are about to release an egg.
Human ovulation is of course more difficult to detect, in contrast to the animal kingdom wherein the signs are glaring.
Chimpanzees of course show a swollen genital area when they are fertile.
The women, who did not know what the study was about and were all in stable relationships, were photographed in their least fertile and most fertile phases.
42 people, 50% of them women, were then asked to look at the pairs of pictures and judge in which one the woman was trying to look more attractive.
The judges selected the photo taken during the the fertile phases 60% of the time .
The approach of ovulation more so impacted on the way women dressed than the onset of menstruation .
Previous studies found that they flirt more with men other than their partners when about to ovulate.
