Washington, Sept 29 (ANI): In some animal species in which the males offer particularly large gifts of sperm and nutrients to a prospective mate, the females are willing to do the chasing, a new research has found.
"In this beast [in this study], it's a big cheesy, gooey substance that the male ejects when he copulates," said U of T Mississauga professor Darryl Gwynne
"It's attached to his sperm packet, so while she's being inseminated, she can reach back and grab this mating gift and eat it."
In the insects that Gwynne works with, some males sing to advertise that they have a safe burrow to offer the females, while in other species, they offer the females a nutritional perk.
In the katydids, where a female searched for a male, she stood to gain the largest nutritional gift.
And from the male's perspective, a large food gift not only potentially benefits his offspring, but distracts the female long enough to ensure that he has time for a full insemination.
Otherwise, said Gwynne, "she's hungry...if he didn't give her this gift, she'd just pull off the sperm packet and snack on that like a little hors d'oeuvre."
The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (ANI)
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