They buy sexier clothing, are more likely to stare at attractive men and — if they are strippers — they get better tips.

And now science has identified yet another characteristic of the elusive ovulating woman: she is better at picking out straight men from the gays.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Toronto suggests that ovulation significantly improves a woman’s ability to judge a man’s sexual orientation.

“What it really sort of hints at is there are evolutionary reasons why women would pay attention to cues relevant for mating,” says Nicholas Rule, assistant professor of psychology at U of T and lead researcher on the study.

“When women have a higher chance of getting pregnant they’re going to pay more attention to cues in the environment that would attend to that.”

A slew of strange ovulation phenomena have been uncovered in recent years as scientists track how the female cycle impacts mating practices. Other research has suggested that ovulating women emit a scent that is more attractive to men, get better tips as lap dancers and buy sexier clothing in an unconscious attempt to outdo rivals.

For the gaydar study, scientists tracked the fertility cycles of 40 heterosexual female undergraduate students and asked them to judge photos of 80 men’s faces. Half of the men self-identified as gay and the other half were straight.

The men were all equally attractive and wore the same facial expression, researchers said. Women were encouraged to use their intuition.

Ladies closest to peak ovulation were found to have the best gaydar.

“It’s interesting because it suggests that there are factors that influence the way we perceive and evaluate people without our knowing it,” Rule says.

Gaydar, by the way, is a portmanteau of the words “gay” and “radar,” defined as the ability to detect sexual orientation.

When scientists added a little romance to the equation, women became even better at determining whether men were gay or straight.

Researchers made up a story — about a walk on a beach with an attractive male during a tropical island vacation — and had women read it before they looked at the photos. Women who were primed to think about romance and mating were better at spotting straight men than those who were not.

The study also found that ovulation did not make women any better at judging whether other women are gay or straight.

“That suggests they’re not hyper attentive to everything, just men and sex essentially,” Rule says.

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In terms of practical application of the findings, Rule says it may be useful for women to know that they appear to be better at picking partners — at least sexual partners — when they are ovulating.

And if you really want to make yourself like someone, seeing a rom-com or flipping through a Harlequin before date night may give you the evolutionary push you need.