Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Six-Legged Seducin'


In today's post, Fenner naturalist MacKenzie delves into the steamy world of insect romance in honor of Valentine's Day!  

Valentine’s Day has finally arrived, so I figured it would be a great time to talk about what is on everyone’s mind—S……............SCIENCE!

Particularly, I want to share some of the interesting way organisms find and attract mates. We know how some humans think they can attract mates—smelling nice, dressing nice, dancing, and complementing potential mates on how good they look.  We can find all of these in the wild, too—except for maybe the last part.

The first guy and gal I want to talk about are moths. Now, I know you’re thinking moths aren’t that sexy, but let me tell you —they’ve got great adaptations for finding the right mate! When they’re ready to mate females will stay in one place and give off a special scent called pheromones that attracts males from the same species. The males have great “noses” on their feathery antennae that pick up that scent in the air. That doesn’t seem too impressive until you hear this: a male polyphemus moth can find a female up to FIVE MILES AWAY. This means that about “one molecule of scent” is present in a “cubic yard of air.”  Could you imagine trying to find someone here at Fenner if you and your nose were all the way out in Okemos?  I honestly don’t want to imagine the pick-up lines that moth’s use: “I knew that I had to have you when I smelled you five miles away, baby."  

Anyway, the better their receptor, the better chance males have to find a good, smelly lady.  So these sensory receptors turn out to be pretty impressive.

                                                                     (asknature.org)

Next up, cockroaches!  This time we’re dealing with a nice treat the male roach provides for his lady. And no, we aren’t talking about chocolate, but it does have some of the same qualities. Once a cockroach has wooed his lady-roach, he releases an aphrodisiac from his abdomen called seducin “on which the female nibbles [on] during copulation.”  (Note the similarity to the word, “seduction”?)  And now we know why cockroaches are so prolific!

(entomology.unl.edu)
 Come and visit our Madagascar Hissing Cockroach colony next time you visit Fenner!

In this next species, the males are the ones that do the flashing to attract mates. Fireflies, or lightning bugs, use their lights to communicate with each other.  Although we won’t see fireflies at this time of year, during the summer months when you see those flashing lights, you are unintentionally listening in on either a steamy or deadly conversation!  Males will flash the ladies twice to signal their availability. If the lady firefly accepts, she flashes back once, inviting the male to seal the deal.  (Blink one for yes, two for no.) 

Most fireflies will spend their entire adult lives (about two weeks) trying to get it on.  This all sounds great, until one species of firefly learned how to use this communication scheme for evil.  It all begins the same way: the male flashes his lights twice to introduce himself: blink, blink. The photuris species of lightening bug will respond back to the male with the one blink, but instead of inviting the male to “seal the deal” they instead seal his fate with death. After luring the male over, they suck out his blood for a delicious but unromantic dinner.  So much for the happily ever after…….

                                                                          (firefly.org)

So, that is a very, very brief introduction to some of the crazy stuff involved in wooing or seducin’ (hah!) the ladies in the insect world. Who knew a two-week lifespan could be so steamy?

Want to learn more? Check out the book “Six-legged Sex: The Erotic Life of Bugs” by James K. Wangberg. If you've got any other interesting, sexy ways bugs try to attract one another, feel free to post them in the comments below!


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4738074

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