Don’t, like, take it personally, dads. It’s just, like, our girl time.

Researchers have found that when daughters are at the peak of their monthly fertility, their bodies unconsciously direct them away from their fathers (or other male relatives), evidently to decrease the chance of inbreeding.The behavior has long been observed in animal species—evolution’s way of keeping the species strong—but until now, nobody’s tested whether humans follow suit. Turns out we do, only our equivalent of keeping to our own burrow is to give dads the silent treatment.

“Women call their dads less frequently on these high-fertility days and they hang up with them sooner if their dads initiate a call,” researchers said. (Daddy convos lasted an average of 1.7 minutes per day at high fertility, compared to 3.4 minutes per day at low fertility.)

Though it’d be easy to attribute this to daughters’ general attempt to shuck off parental coddling, women were found to increase contact with their mothers during the same period of fertility. Scientists reassure fathers that this has nothing to do with their daughters’ level of affection for them.

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