Why Do Males and Females Look Different?

[Alf]

To catch the females for mating?

Almost, but they don't catch the females

Before you can mate, you have to ....?

They have to try and impress them....

[Klipspringer]

They have to try and impress them....

Another brilliant idea but likely not the case. A wing display is not involved in courtship behaviour.

Though descriptions of courtship behaviour are very rare in Mantodea. In most species males are observed moving parts of their bodies when approaching the female: waving or boxing of the fore legs, exposure of the bright pattern of the inner sides of the legs, dancing and stamping with the walking legs, lifting and bending of the abdomen.



Females however use their wings to perform a wing display, rearing back with the forelegs and wings spread - but not in courtship.


Before you can impress the female, you have to ...?

[ExFmem]

Find one...

[Klipspringer]

Find one...

Yeah

Male mantids only fly to search for a female to mate with. Females are more or less sedentary and will release airborne pheromones (chemical signals) for the males to detect. That's why males have larger antennae where the sensory organs are located. Usually they take flight only at night and only males have a sort of hearing organ to detect ultrasound made by bats, this is used to avoid predation.


Females don't need to fly but use their wings for a so called deimatic display. ‘Deimatic’ comes from the Greek δειματσω, ‘to frighten’, and is generally used to describe behaviour in which, when under attack, prey suddenly unleash unexpected defences to frighten their predators and stop the attack.
Deimatic displays are made by insects including the praying mantises (Mantidae) and stick insects (Phasmatodea). While undisturbed, these insects are usually well camouflaged. When disturbed by a potential predator, they suddenly reveal their hind wings, which are brightly coloured. In mantises, the wing display is sometimes reinforced by showing brightly coloured front legs, and accompanied by a loud hissing sound created by stridulation.

Here is another photo of nan's mantis. You can see the bright colours of the hindwings.




Here a female Dystacta alticeps in deimatic display:
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities ... take-a-bow

[Alf]

It was actually such a simple answer

[Klipspringer]

Any ideas on Alf's beetle?

[Richprins]

How fascinating!