| Harpobittacus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Harpobittacus septentrionis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Mecoptera |
| Family: | Bittacidae |
| Genus: | Harpobittacus Gerstaecker, 1885 |
Harpobittacus is a genus of hangingfly of the family Bittacidae found in Australia. [1]
Species of Harpobittacus are found in moist environments as a larvae and adult. The adults are active from October to February and lay their eggs in the summer. They undergo metamorphosis, beginning with the female laying her cube–shaped eggs in the soil. The larva pupate underground, remaining moist to prevent desiccation and once they hatch, they feed on soil, mosses, dead insects, and leaf litter. [2] [3]
Adults normally display black bodies with orange markings and have claws at the ends of their long legs. [4] They catch prey by hanging from vegetation with their forelegs and capturing small insects that get close with their hind-legs. They feed by holding the insect in their mouth, sucking out the soft tissues and juices and dropping the empty chitinous shells. [2] [5]
Harpobittacus species exhibit some less common mating strategies, including pheromone secretion, nuptial gifts, and cryptic female choice. [6] [7] [8] [9]
When males are attempting to attract females, other nearby males may approach in an attempt to steal his prey, using a tactic known as prey piracy. [6] [7] The males engage in male–male competition by fighting using their long legs to attack. The larger male has the advantage, as well as the original owner of the prey, due to having a better grip. Oftentimes, no harm is caused to either male, meaning fighting has a low cost associated with it. Males will also frequently use a conditional strategy of switching between hunting their own prey and stealing from other males. [10]
Males that have captured prey and are looking to mate will release a sex pheromone to attract prospective females. Once the male has attracted a female, he will present the prey, or nuptial gift, for the female to eat while they copulate. The nuptial gift is normally an arthropod that they've caught and deemed large enough to be able to attract a female with. [8] The catching of prey can be energetically costly to the males, however they often eat some of the prey before offering it to prospective mates. The male will give the female a taste and then he will prevent her from eating it for the first several minutes as he grasps the tip of the female's abdomen with his genital claspers. This allows him to prolong the length of copulation, increasing the amount of sperm transferred to the female. Eventually, he gives her the prey and she continues to eat throughout the duration of copulation. Once the female stops eating, copulation ceases and she flies away. [11]
Females of Harpobittacus species exert choice on which males to mate with and which will sire her offspring. Preliminary decisions are made by females based on the size of the prey the male is attempting to give her. If the prey is too small, she will often mate for a very short time or not at all. Females exercise post-copulatory control after mating with multiple males by determining rate of fertilization by each male. When females mate with males with small gifts, they immediately remate until they find a male with a large prey. Then females enter periods of sexual non receptivity and begin laying eggs, providing the male with the large gift the last–male sperm precedence, greatly increasing the odds of him parenting most of her offspring. [9] By mating with multiple males, females can benefit by getting many nuptial gifts, which provide her with more energy for egg development. It also increases the genetic diversity of her offspring by having multiple different sires. [12] [13]
The genus contains the following species. [14]
The Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly is a bright orange butterfly in the subfamily Heliconiinae of the family Nymphalidae. That subfamily was formerly set apart as a separate family, the Heliconiidae. The Heliconiinae are "longwing butterflies", which have long, narrow wings compared to other butterflies.
Mecoptera is an order of insects in the superorder Endopterygota with about six hundred species in nine families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their largest family, Panorpidae, in which the males have enlarged genitals raised over the body that look similar to the stingers of scorpions, and long beaklike rostra. The Bittacidae, or hangingflies, are another prominent family and are known for their elaborate mating rituals, in which females choose mates based on the quality of gift prey offered to them by the males. A smaller group is the snow scorpionflies, family Boreidae, adults of which are sometimes seen walking on snowfields. In contrast, the majority of species in the order inhabit moist environments in tropical locations.
Bittacidae is a family of scorpionflies commonly called hangingflies or hanging scorpionflies.
The Choristidae are a small family of scorpionflies known only from Australia. Their larvae are found in moss mats.
Sexual conflict or sexual antagonism occurs when the two sexes have conflicting optimal fitness strategies concerning reproduction, particularly over the mode and frequency of mating, potentially leading to an evolutionary arms race between males and females. In one example, males may benefit from multiple matings, while multiple matings may harm or endanger females, due to the anatomical differences of that species. Sexual conflict underlies the evolutionary distinction between male and female.
Sexual cannibalism is when an animal, usually the female, cannibalizes its mate prior to, during, or after copulation. It is a trait observed in many arachnid orders and several insect orders. Several hypotheses to explain this seemingly paradoxical behavior have been proposed. The adaptive foraging hypothesis, aggressive spillover hypothesis and mistaken identity hypothesis are among the proposed hypotheses to explain how sexual cannibalism evolved. This behavior is believed to have evolved as a manifestation of sexual conflict, occurring when the reproductive interests of males and females differ. In many species that exhibit sexual cannibalism, the female consumes the male upon detection. Females of cannibalistic species are generally hostile and unwilling to mate; thus many males of these species have developed adaptive behaviors to counteract female aggression.
Utetheisa ornatrix, also called the ornate bella moth, ornate moth, bella moth or rattlebox moth is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae. It is aposematically colored ranging from pink, red, orange and yellow to white coloration with black markings arranged in varying patterns on its wings. It has a wingspan of 33–46 mm. Moths reside in temperate midwestern and eastern North America as well as throughout Mexico and other parts of Central America. Unlike most moths, the bella moth is diurnal. Formerly, the bella moth or beautiful utetheisa of temperate eastern North America was separated as Utetheisa bella. Now it is united with the bella moth in Utetheisa ornatrix.
Pyrrolizidine alkaloid sequestration by insects is a strategy to facilitate defense and mating. Various species of insects have been known to use molecular compounds from plants for their own defense and even as their pheromones or precursors to their pheromones. A few Lepidoptera have been found to sequester chemicals from plants which they retain throughout their life and some members of Erebidae are examples of this phenomenon. Starting in the mid-twentieth century researchers investigated various members of Arctiidae, and how these insects sequester pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) during their life stages, and use these chemicals as adults for pheromones or pheromone precursors. PAs are also used by members of the Arctiidae for defense against predators throughout the life of the insect.
The six-spotted fishing spider is an arachnid from the nursery web spider family Pisauridae. This species is from the genus Dolomedes, or the fishing spiders. Found in wetland habitats throughout North America, these spiders are usually seen scampering along the surface of ponds and other bodies of water. They are also referred to as dock spiders because they can sometimes be witnessed quickly vanishing through the cracks of boat docks. D. triton gets its scientific name from the Greek mythological god Triton, who is the messenger of the big sea and the son of Poseidon.
Empis borealis is a species of dance flies in the fly family Empididae. It is found in most of Europe, except the Balkan Peninsula, the Baltic Region and the Iberian Peninsula. The brown wings of the female are very broad, while the male fly’s wings are narrower.
A nuptial gift is a nutritional gift given by one partner in some animals' sexual reproduction practices.
Pisaurina mira, also known as the American nursery web spider, is a species of spider in the family Pisauridae. They are often mistaken for wolf spiders (Lycosidae) due to their physical resemblance. P. mira is distinguished by its unique eye arrangement of two rows.
Hylobittacus apicalis is a species of hangingfly in the order Mecoptera, and the only species within the genus Hylobittacus.
Sexual selection in insects is about how sexual selection functions in insects. The males of some species have evolved exaggerated adornments and mechanisms for self-defense. These traits play a role in increasing male reproductive expectations by triggering male-male competition or influencing the female mate choice, and can be thought of as functioning on three different levels: individuals, colonies, and populations within an area.
Cryptic female choice is a form of mate choice which occurs both in pre and post copulatory circumstances when females in certain species use physical or chemical mechanisms to control a male's success of fertilizing their ova or ovum; i.e. by selecting whether sperm are successful in fertilizing their eggs or not. It occurs in internally-fertilizing species and involves differential use of sperm by females when sperm are available in the reproductive tract.
Dicerapanorpa is a genus of scorpionflies endemic to China. They can be easily recognized by the two anal horns on the posterior margin of the sixth tergum in males.
Panorpa cognata is a species of scorpionfly belonging to the family Panorpidae.
Rhamphomyia longicauda, the long-tailed dance fly, is a species of fly commonly found in eastern North America that belongs to the family Empididae and part of the superfamily of dance flies Empidoidea. It is included in the subgenus Rhamphomyia. This species of fly is most known for sex role reversal during courtship, as females put on exaggerated displays and congregate in leks to attract males. Females cannot hunt for food, so they receive protein from nuptial gifts brought to them by males. Female dependence on males for nutrition is the principal cause for sex role reversal in this species of fly.
Hemiandrus maculifrons is a species of ground wētā endemic to New Zealand. They are nocturnal, carnivorous, and flightless orthopterans belonging to the family Anostostomatidae. Being a nocturnal species, individuals remain in tunnels in the ground during the day and emerge from their burrows after sunset to forage and hunt for small invertebrates. H. maculifrons is one of the smallest New Zealand weta species, averaging 15 mm in length and weighing 1–3 g. Unlike the tree weta and tusked weta, where sexual dimorphism is found in the form of male weaponry, ground weta only exhibit sexual size dimorphism: the females are larger than the males.
Panorpa vulgaris, also known by its common name meadow scorpionfly is a species from the genus Panorpa. The species was first described in 1845.
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