It's the same old story. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl have sex. Girl eats boy
. . .
"Wait a minute," you say. "What kind of sick, perverted, cannibalistic sex
life is that?" Well, it's actually quite natural . . . for a praying mantis.
Ah, yes, the sex life of a praying mantis. While the male is having sex with the female,
she will often turn around and bite his head off. This does not stop him, though: he will
continue to copulate with the female, even while his brain is being digested by her
gastric juices. You might wonder why the male even bothers. However, his genes will live
on in a whole new generation, the embryos growing with nourishment from their father's
body. This avoids the whole "deadbeat dad" issue that plagues many other insects
and humans.
Some insects, such as the male hangingflies, practice "safe sex." To avoid being
eaten by the female, they present her with insects to snack on during sex. Some wrap the
meal in silken threads so they can inseminate the female before she is finished eating.
Some even give the female an empty package: by the time she chews through and discovers it
is empty, the male is nowhere to be seen.
Although that may seem like a dirty trick, females of the Photinus genus of
fireflies play an even nastier trick. Fireflies attract a mate by flashing a signal that
is specific to their species. However, the female Photinus flashes the signals of
other species. The males will land, thinking they will mate with a female of their own
species. They realize too late that they have become Photinus food.
Insects
have to worry about more than being eaten. They also have to make sure that their sperm,
not another male's, fertilize the female's eggs. Most female insects store sperm in a
storage pouch called the spermatheca, and the eggs are fertilized later. To make sure
their sperm fertilize the eggs, many male damselflies have a structure to scoop out the
previous male's sperm from the female's spermatheca. Male migratory locusts plug the
spermatheca opening so other males cannot deposit their sperm. Some male butterflies even
coat the female's genitalia with a substance that hardens, preventing her from mating with
other males. Male bed bugs avoid the issue altogether. They pierce the female's abdomen
and inject sperm into her blood, sort of like taking a shortcut to her eggs.
Some insects are well-endowed by human standards. The female mayflies have
two genital openings, and the males have two penises. Others have a marathon endurance
that humans can only envy. For example, one species of walkingstick may copulate for as
long as 79 days!
So, the next time you are lying in bed, wondering what is going on in the next room,
wonder instead what the cockroaches in the kitchen are up to . . .
February 1999
Related books for sale on Amazon.com:
Insects Through the Seasons by Gilbert Waldbauer
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� Suzanne P. Currie 1999 [email protected]
