German boffins have carried out a groundbreaking study into the habits of fat birds as compared to thin ones. They say that the plumper subjects in their sample had more one-night stands than the slim ones, and that the chubbies in general achieved sexual congress sooner than their lightweight counterparts.

According to a statement issued by the Max Planck Institutes:

While pockets of flab accumulated over the winter months may be a source of frustration for some, it can be a cause of joy for others ... The researchers fitted ten fat birds and ten lean birds on the Italian island of Ventotene with temporary adhesive radio transmitters.

Monitoring their test subjects using the stick-on surveillance bugs, the German boffins found that the more rotund ones had sex sooner and generally slept only one night in any given location. Plumpness led to sexual success for the wobblebottomed group, while their spindly counterparts took longer to get any action - and tended to make longer stays of more than one night, too.

"We assume that the majority of the birds arrived on the island the morning we caught them," says Wolfgang Goymann of the Max Planck Gesellschaft.

Full details of the research into warblers can be read courtesy of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, here. ®