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Male-Male Mounting And The Unreliability Of Body Size As A Character For Mate Choice In Male Japanese Beetles (Popillia Japonica Newman), Paul V. Switzer, Patrick S. Forsythe, Kipp C. Kruse
Male-Male Mounting And The Unreliability Of Body Size As A Character For Mate Choice In Male Japanese Beetles (Popillia Japonica Newman), Paul V. Switzer, Patrick S. Forsythe, Kipp C. Kruse
Paul V. Switzer
Background: Same-sex pairing is common in many animal species. In many insects, same-sex pairing is often thought to be a result of poor sexual discrimination (i.e., a mistake), but few detailed studies of the mechanisms underlying the mistaken pairing have been conducted. Previous studies have found that in the field, a small proportion of Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) mating pairs consist of two males instead of a male and a female. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between body size, the tendency to mount other males, and the duration of these mounts, in laboratory experiments on male Japanese …
Physical Contests For Females In The Japanese Beetle, Popillia Japonica, Paul Switzer, Kipp C. Kruse
Physical Contests For Females In The Japanese Beetle, Popillia Japonica, Paul Switzer, Kipp C. Kruse
Paul V. Switzer
We conducted field observations of physical competition for mates, in which a single male attempts to usurp a female from another male, in male Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera; Scarabaeidae). Physical contests for mates were relatively rare, but when they occurred the challenger male was able to successfully takeover females by dislodging the previously paired resident male in only 18% of contests, suggesting that a substantial prior residency advantage exists in this species. Challenger males that were successful in takeover attempts were significantly larger than the resident male. In contrast, no size pattern was found between intruding males and …