Mating
Two chemical signals play important roles in the sexual behaviour of B. giganteus. The sex pheromone is released by the female and used in attracting mates that are long distances away. The male will produce an aphrodisiac sex hormone from its tergal glands that will encourage female mounting. Females choose the males with which they will mate, so this sexual selection becomes a major pressure and driving force behind evolution. Carbohydrate intake has been found to be related to male sex pheromone expression, dominance status, and attractiveness more so than protein. Males have been shown to have a preference for a high carbohydrate diet versus one focused on protein. This would suggest they are actively increasing their carbohydrate consumption to maximize their reproductive fitness and attractiveness to potential female mates. After mating, the female B. giganteus will be pregnant for life and stores the fertilized eggs in her ootheca, where they are incubated for roughly 60 days. When the eggs are about to hatch, the female will expel the ootheca so the nymphs can break free and feed on their first meal, which consists of the ootheca. After eating their fill, the young nymphs will burrow into soil or somewhere dark and remain there until they have molted numerous times and reached maturity.
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Famous quotes containing the word mating:
“The far-off clinching and mating of arches, the leap and thrust of the stone, carrying a great roof overhead, awed and silenced her.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)
“He’s one of those know-it-all types that, if you flatter the wig off him, he chatter like a goony bird at mating time.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Johnson (Reginald Gardner)