First: Males stake out territory and patrol it with the vigor of a special forces unit of one. When another approaches, the patrolling male defends his space by flying right at the other, wings clashing.
Second: Males have two sets of genitalia. Read that again. Males have two sets of genitalia.
Third: The male prepares sperm at the tip of his abdomen and then touches that tip to his secondary genitalia, where he deposits sperm packets.
Fourth: The male flies to a female and grasps her head with his claspers. They fly in tandem, he doing the flying, she being flown by him.
Fifth: When she's ready, the female curls the tip of her abdomen up to meet the male's accessory genitalia. Females often reach up and grasp the male's abdomen with their legs. The result is the wheel.
Sixth: The male scoops away any sperm left from a previous mating or matings. Seventh: The male deposits his sperm packets.
Eighth: If the female is lucky, she can oviposit her eggs. If not . . .
Ninth: . . . another male might grab her and the whole thing will begin again.
No comments:
Post a Comment