AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Nuptial feeding refers to nutrient transfer from the male to the female during courtship and/or copulation [8, 9]. In insects the nutrient could encompass any form of edible gifts, including preys, glandular products, or even male body [9, 10] .

Detailed explanation-2: -In many species of insects, birds and mammals, males acquire and donate food to females either before, during, or after copulation (termed mate provisioning, courtship feeding, nuptial gift giving, or meat-for-sex).

Detailed explanation-3: -In fruitflies, katydids and scorpionflies nuptial gifts contain substances that reduce a female’s receptivity to additional matings. While nuptial gifts also may boost female fecundity, from a male’s perspective, such investment will only be beneficial if it increases the number of his own offspring.

Detailed explanation-4: -Hangingflies are unique for the male providing a nuptial gift to the female during mating and taking a face-to-face hanging copulation with the female. Their male genitalia are peculiar for an extremely elongated penisfilum, a pair of well-developed epandrial lobes (9th tergum), and a pair of degenerated gonostyli.

Detailed explanation-5: -In general, male hangingflies provide a flying insect prey as a nuptial gift to the female prior to copulation, then provisionally twist their abdomen by 180° clockwise or counterclockwise to form a belly-to-belly hanging mating position [16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23].