COURTSHIP FEEDING AND REPEATED MATING IN ZOROTYPUS-BARBERI (INSECTA, ZORAPTERA)

The mating behaviour of Zorotypus barberi Gurney (Insecta: Zoraptera) involves courtship feeding and repeated mating. The male performs an elaborate sequence of pre-copulatory courtship, during which he secretes a liquid substance from the cephalic gland and uses it as a courtship gift to entice females to mate. The female allows the male to copulate with her, only after she has successfully obtained the gift. Females continue to assess the mate quality even after genitalic intromission has begun and mate rejection by females is common during copulation as well as during pre-copulatory courtship. The majority of prematurely terminated copulations occur before sperm are transferred. Mating pairs usually copulate three or more times in succession and the entire sequence of courtship is repeated prior to each copulation. Females that mated three or more times lay considerably more eggs than those mated only once or twice, suggesting that sufficient sperm supplies are required for females to achieve full fecundity. By copulating repeatedly with the same male, females could obtain courtship gifts at a greater rate than mating multiply with different males because the courtship duration with the same male decreases significantly after the first copulation. Observations on females that mated with multiple males suggest that such females may copulate repeatedly with a preferred male in order to dilute the sperm from inferior males and thus affect the paternity of offspring.