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Now big isn't always beautiful. A new study by the University of Exeter scientists discovered that smaller male burying beetles tend to be desired by female counterparts as they are less likely to be aggressive and enter fights.

Still, while they seem to be more attractive to female beetles, they aren't better parents than the big ones either.

Researchers probed the sexual lure of male burying beetles, who are thought to be "great parents" among insects. When they placed the beetles in the wild with a dead mouse, it afforded them an ideal location to mate with female beetles and start their family.

Hence, the smaller ones attracted the female partners to the mouse faster than the bigger beetles, mainly due to their "decreased potential for competition and personal fights".

"These results show that by being choosy about their males, female burying beetles might avoid complicated relationships involving male fights and extra female competitors," said Paul Hopwood, lead researcher of the project, in a press release.

The findings did not, however, find any link between the size and the ability to become good parents.

"We found no evidence that males of any size, or from any social background, were more committed parents," said Hopwood.

The findings were published in the Jan. 8 issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.