FEMALE desert crickets gorge themselves on “food gifts” from males during
sex. Biologist Tracie Ivy of Illinois State University, Normal, has found that
by consuming the treat, dehydrated females can produce more nymphs.
Male crickets deliver more sperm if they distract females with a tasty treat
during copulation. But there has been debate over what the benefit is for the
female, since the gift has no nutritional value.
But Ivy noted that the food gift of her study species, Gryllodes
sigillatus, was 82 per cent water. When she allowed the females to become
dehydrated, those that were allowed to eat the food gift had more young than
those who did not, she told a meeting of the Midwest Regional Animal Behavior
Society in Columbus, Ohio, last week.