Tree Cricket Courtship

Tree crickets, genus Oecanthus, are having quite the year here along the Colorado Front Range. Last month I went to Garden of the Gods park in Colorado Springs and could hardly go twenty feet without hearing a male tree cricket singing in the tall weeds or from a yucca blade. I even managed to capture videos of their singing and courtship.

Male tree cricket singing

There are five species of tree crickets in Colorado: the Prairie Tree Cricket, Oecanthus argentinus, Western Tree Cricket, O. californicus, Snowy Tree Cricket, O. fultoni, Black-horned Tree Cricket, O. nigricornis, and the Four-spotted Tree Cricket, O. quadripunctatus. Determining the species of a given individual is difficult to say the least because identification frequently hinges on the markings present (or absent) on the first two segments at the base of the antenna. I know! The whole insect is only about twenty millimeters maximum.

It is much easier to tell which gender is which. Females are very slender, with the front pair of wings hugging the body tightly. The short, stout ovipositor, used to insert eggs into berry canes and other plant stems, is easily visible.

Female tree cricket

Males on the other hand have the front wings greatly expanded into paddle-shaped musical instruments that make them look more like green lacewings than crickets. The intricate pattern of veins is all about lending support to the membrane that generates, amplifies, and projects the male's song. He lifts his wings into a heart shape at a 90-degree angle to his body in order to sing.

Tree cricket singing

The song is produced when a "scraper" on one wing is drawn across a "file" on the other wing, near where the wings join the thorax. The rapidity with which this happens cannot be captured by ordinary video cameras. Some male tree crickets align their wings with gaps in foliage, or even chew holes in leaves, to reduce acoustic interference and further intensify their call.

Singing male tree cricket with exposed metanotal gland in center of thorax

Like most crickets and other members of the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets), males have more than one kind of song. Once a male successfully lures a female, he switches to a softer song to help her orient to him. His raised front wings also expose a metanotal gland in the center of his thorax, which secretes a substance that the female feeds on. This is something of a distraction so that he can transfer a spermatophore, or "sperm packet" to her genital opening. The packet appears as a small, pearly blob near the tip of her abdomen in the video and images below.

Female tree cricket feeding from male's metanotal gland

The spermatophore takes time to drain sperm into her oviduct, and the female would undoubtedly eat it if she did not have the more attractive metanotal secretion to lick instead. She is sufficiently addicted that she feeds for several minutes after mating.

Tree crickets are omnivores, feeding on plants and small insects like aphids. Some species are truly arboreal, living in shrubs or high in trees, but a surprising diversity can be found in grassy fields, meadows, and similar habitats.

Male tree cricket at rest

There are many wonderful online resources to help you appreciate and identify tree crickets. One of the best is Singing Insects of North America, which covers grasshoppers, katydids, and cicadas along with crickets. Oecanthinae.com was created by Nancy Collins, a citizen scientist who has become a leading authority on tree crickets, even discovering a species new to science. Lisa Rainsong writes and illustrates the blog "Listening in Nature," which covers all kinds of acoustic phenomenon in the outdoors.

Male Prairie(?) Tree Cricket singing

Enjoy listening to, and looking for, tree crickets in your own neighborhood. Finding them is a challenge, but your patience will be rewarded. Above all, have fun.

Sources: Collins, Nancy. 2014. All About Tree Crickets. Parker, Colorado: Outskirts Press. 48 pp.
Dethier, Vincent G. 1992. Crickets and Katydids, Concerts and Solos. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 140 pp.
Elliott, Lang and Wil Hershberger. 2007. The Songs of Insects. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 228 pp.

Dimorphic Jumping Spider, Maevia inclemens

When I lived in Ohio I had the great honor of being introduced to Dr. George Uetz at the University of Cincinnati. At the time he had a graduate student, Dave Clark, who was doing research on the courtship behavior of the Dimorphic Jumping Spider, Maevia inclemens. Ever since then I have had a special place in my heart for this unique member of the Salticidae.

"Tufted form" male, Missouri

What makes this spider so special, you ask? The name says it all. The male of this species comes in two distinct forms: a "tufted form" that is all-black with white legs; and a "gray form" with black pinstripes and orange spots and chevrons. Not only do they look like separate species, but they behave like two different spiders, too. Each male performs a complex dance that is different from that of the other form.

"Tufted form" male, Indiana

The tufted form, named for the triple-Mohawk style hairdo, literally stands on tiptoe, dips his abdomen, and waves his front pair of legs overhead at a prospective mate. The gray form takes a "low rider" position and sidles back and forth.

"Gray form" male, Kansas

Dave Clark capitalized on those differences, as well as his expertise in video, and created animations of a tufted form male doing a gray form dance, and vice versa. He then played his mixed-up dance mix in front of live female spiders. Jumping spiders have better eyesight than any other terrestrial invertebrate, so they could actually watch, and react to, the videos on a monitor. This was back in the late 1980s, so Dave dubbed his lab "MTV" for "Maevia Television."

"Gray form" male, Kansas

The Dimorphic Jumper is a species commonly encountered in the eastern half of the U.S. where it prowls understory foliage, climbs on walls and fences, and occasionally enters homes. These are not overly large spiders, males ranging from 4.8-7.0 millimeters in body length, females 6.5-10 millimeters. Females have consistent markings, being mostly pale with a pair of orange or red racing stripes running down the back of the abdomen.

The first time I saw a tufted form male of this species, it was on a sidewalk in Cincinnati and I initially mistook it for a carpenter ant. This species is not generally considered an ant mimic, but considering that carpenter ants forage in the same places as Maevia, it is not out of the question I suppose.

Juvenile female or gray form male, Massachusetts

So what was the result of those experiments? The dance of the black form male is apparently more successful at attracting the attention of a female from a greater distance, while the dance of the gray form male is better at wooing a lady spider closer to him. You can see videos here on YouTube of both kinds of males performing. There is no word on whether the females presented with the wrong combo of male appearance and dance moves suffered psychological damage.

"Is there a female down there?"

Sources: Bradley, Richard A. 2013. Common Spiders of North America. Berkeley: University of California Press. 271 pp.
Clark, David L. and George W. Uetz. 1993. "Signal efficacy and the evolution of male dimorphism in the jumping spider, Maevia inclemens," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90: 11954-11957.
Guarisco, Hank, Bruce Cutler, and Kenneth E. Kinman. 2001. "Checklist of Kansas Jumping Spiders [illustrated]," Kansas School Naturalist 47(1).
Moffett, Mark W. 1991. "All Eyes on Jumping Spiders," Nat. Geo. Mag. 180(3): 42-63.

Courting Robber Flies

It must be spring. Love is in the air, on twigs, on the ground....at least if you are watching insects. They are courting and mating everywhere. My last couple of outings afield on the plains here in eastern Colorado have given me the opportunity to witness some insect romance up close; and I remembered to use the video function on my camera, too.

Male Ablautus(?) robber fly with leafhopper prey

One particularly abundant insect in early spring is a small robber fly, family Asilidae, possibly in the genus Ablautus. Adults of this dipteran measure only about 6-7 millimeters, and they are sand-colored, so rather difficult to see. They prey on insects smaller than they are. The one in the image above has killed a leafhopper.

I discovered that the males are slightly smaller and more slender than females, with bright white hairs on their faces. Females have gold or ochre-colored hairs on their faces.

Female Ablautus(?) robber fly

Males are very energetic, and once engaged in courting a female, they are not easily frightened away. So, once I discerned there was a pair of the flies on the ground in front of me, I stopped and watched. This is the amazing result. The male alights near the stationary female, then flies and alights again, sometimes sidling into a different position. Eventually, he waves his front legs in front of her and rocks up and down. It is quite a display.

This next video is of a different pair of flies, perhaps a little farther along in the process, because it has an, uh...."happy ending." The male is the one with the smile on his face.

Many flies have elaborate courtship rituals, but asilids (robber flies) have some of the fanciest. I was lucky enough to also capture video of the aerial display of Heteropogon macerinus in Ohio a couple of years ago.

Robber fly "wedding photo"

I urge you to find your own examples of "bug love," and document them with your camera, even your smartphone. There are plenty of places to share the results online. Maybe your video will even go viral on YouTube. In any event, we stand to learn a good deal more about insect behavior through the efforts of curious citizen scientists.

Fork-tailed Bush Katydid

I vividly recall an episode in my childhood that perhaps cemented my fascination with insects. I must have been somewhere between eight and eleven years old. One afternoon in late summer I heard an insect calling at regular intervals from a rhododendron bush outside the front door of our Portland, Oregon home. I finally tracked down the creature and discovered it was a male Fork-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia furcata. What happened next I shall relate later in this post.

I did not know at the time what kind of katydid I was observing. Years later I discovered E. O. Essig’s book Insects of Western North America in our public library and found the species there. Indeed, it was virtually the only option for western Oregon, Washington, and southern British Columbia.

Eight species of bush katydids in the genus Scudderia are now recognized in the United States and southern Canada. The Fork-tailed Bush Katydid is by far the most widespread, being transcontinental in its geographic distribution. Still, in most regions it is next to impossible to separate from other species.

The only reliable way to differentiate Scudderia species is by the shape of the “dorsal process” or “supra-anal plate” in adult male specimens. This horn-like feature juts out of the top of the abdomen at the rear. Another structure, the “sub-genital plate” curves up from below to meet the supra-anal plate. The sub-genital plate may at first be mistaken for an ovipositor, an organ found only in female katydids.

Not surprisingly, the shape of the dorsal process in the Fork-tailed Bush Katydid is, well, fork-like. It looks like a miniature tuning fork, as revealed in the image above. Images of wild, living male bush katydids are usually impossible to identify to species because the folded wings usually conceal the supra-anal plate.

Males also possess the “file and scraper” modifications on the “shoulders” of their front wings. These are the structures they rub together quickly to produce songs. Bush katydids typically rasp a short, intermittent call: s-s-s-s-s-S-S-S-T. This discontinuous song no doubt helps prevent predators from pinpointing the location of the insect.

Back to the opening story. I saw the male katydid produce its song, and in short order a female flew in to join him. Both genders, once close to each other, will talk in soft “ticks,” but I do not recall them having such a conversation. The next thing I knew, the two were in copula, “tail-to-tail.” I watched in horror as I saw a white, gelatinous mass oozing from between the two. When they finally separated, it appeared the female had been torn open and was losing her innards.

I learned much later in my life that the male was the source of this mass. Male katydids and related orthopterans transfer a protein-rich spermatophore in the process of inseminating a female. She consumes this object while the male’s sperm enter her oviduct.

Scudderia sp. female

Fertilized female bush katydids use their curved, knife-like ovipositors to insert eggs between the layers of a leaf, at the leaf’s edge. The result is a kidney bean-shaped bulge in the leaf. A female can lay up to 175 eggs, but deposits a small quantity at each location. The following spring, a tiny katydid emerges from each egg.

Scudderia sp. nymph

Nymphs go through six instars (an instar being the interval between molts), gradually accruing wing pads and both internal and external reproductive organs. They are general feeders on the foliage of shrubs. They are sometimes considered a pest in orchards and citrus groves when populations build to high levels (Bentley, 2002 and Headrick, 2000).

Adult S. furcata are 36-40 millimeters from the head to the tips of the folded wings, so they are not small insects. Still, they are incredibly well camouflaged. Most specimens are wholly green, but late-autumn specimens are correspondingly brownish, reddish, or even pink. They are most active at night, and are sometimes drawn to outdoor lights. Both sexes fly well.

Katydids in general are among my favorite insects, and I can’t help but wonder if that mating pair forever endeared them to me. Keep a listen for katydids in your own yard, garden, or neighborhood park. See if you can tell different species apart by their songs. Search with a flashlight and you will eventually find one of these amazing insects.

Sources: Bentley, Walt. 2002. “Researching Biology and Control of Forktailed Bush Katydid (Scudderia furcata Brenner) and Western Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi Barber) in Stone Fruits,” California Tree Fruit Agreement Research Report 2002 .
Bland, Roger G. 2003. The Orthoptera of Michigan – Biology, Keys, and Descriptions of Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets. East Lansing: Michigan State University Extension, Extension Bulletin E-2815. 220 pp.
Elliott, Lang and Wil Hershberger. 2007. The Songs of Insects. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 228 pp (and a CD).
Headrick, David. 2000. “Fork-tailed Katydid Studies,” Citrus Research Board 2000 Annual Report.
Helfer, Jacques R. 1972. How to Know the Grasshoppers, Cockroaches, and Their Allies (Second Ed.). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers. 359 pp.

Bugs in Love

Happy Valentine’s Day! No matter whether you, or any other person, loves insects, there is no question that they love each other. There are few things arthropods are better at than procreating, so on this day of love why not celebrate their courtship and mating?

True bugs like the Eastern Boxelder Bugs above, often mate “tail-to-tail.” It is one way to differentiate them from beetles, which usually mate stacked up, the male on top. Take the two tiger beetles below, for example.

The video below shows a pair of blister beetles (genus Epicauta) that I found here in Colorado Springs. The male is in the rear, rocking back and forth and literally tickling the fancy of the object of his affection with his antennae. You’ll have to add your own sound track, maybe Barry White or Marvin Gaye. Ooooooh....yeah.

Butterflies, like most insects, rely heavily on pheromones to attract the opposite sex. Pheromones are species-specific volatile chemicals produced mostly by the female, but sometimes the male. The picture below depicts a pair of Heliconius hecale in the “Butterfly Magic” exhibit at Tucson Botanical Gardens. The female is perched on the leaf while the male hovers above.

In this case, he is wafting his own pheromones toward her. Unfortunately for him, the posture of the female is the Lepidoptera equivalent of flipping one’s middle finger. Nice try, guy. Better luck next time.

Some male insects have a “hit-and-run” mentality, literally. Male European Woolcarder Bees, Anthidium manicatum, stake out territories around resources used by the females. They will rout any other males, and any other bee species, from a patch of flowers, for example. When a female lands on a flower and tries to go about the business of harvesting pollen….BAM! The male bee forcibly accosts her, mating with her whether she wants to or not. The session ends after only a few seconds.

Among the more gymnastic of mating rituals occurs in the Odonata: the damselflies and dragonflies. It still may not be much fun for a female, as the male grasps her tightly around the neck with the claspers on the end of his abdomen. Some dragonflies even end up puncturing the eyes of their mates with the prongs and spurs on their claspers.

A compliant female will, however, bend her abdomen up to meet the base of her mate’s abdomen, as his sperm duct is located there. A pair of mating damselflies or dragonflies thus forms a “wheel,” often in the shape of a heart. What a fitting image for Valentine’s Day.

Robber Fly: Heteropogon macerinus

Happy “Fly Day Friday.” Robber flies in the family Asilidae have to be among the most compelling of all insects, as evidenced by the many professional and amateur entomologists who study them. They are diverse in appearance and behavior, and yet there is still much to be learned about them.

This past August I had occasion to visit southern Ohio, and in several places I found specimens of the species Heteropogon macerinus. They are not terribly large, about 10 millimeters long or so, and fairly drab in appearance as you can see from the images here. They are fairly easy to spot, however, because they tend to frequent forest edges where they habitually perch on the tips of twigs at about eye level.

Robber flies like these remind one of flycatchers in the world of birds. They survey the world from their perch, cocking their head this way and that when an insect passes by. Should a flying bug seem to be a potential meal, the robber fly dashes out, grabs its victim, and returns to its perch to feed.

Robber flies have piercing-sucking mouthparts much like a mosquito, but shorter, stouter, and used to prey on other insects, not to feed on the blood of vertebrates. What is visible to us is the sheath that houses the stylets that do the actual piercing, so while it appears that a robber fly has a thick, knife-like beak, the killing and feeding machinery is virtually hair-like.

Asilids have an uncanny ability to find the weak spots in another insect’s armor, and quickly thrust their mouthparts into those areas. Some species go for the “neck,” stabbing through the thin and flexible exoskeleton that joins the head and thorax. Some are able to drive their stylets into the membranes between abdominal segments; or in the seams between various segments of the thorax as this H. macerinus has apparently done to a winged ant in the image below.

What really got my attention was a courting pair of Heteropogon macerinus that my wife and I spotted at the edge of a cemetery in Lynx, Ohio on August 25, 2013. The tarsi (“feet”) on the front legs of male Heteropogon species are at least slightly decorated with ornamental setae (“hairs”), and he uses these “bracelets” to full advantage. Norm Lavers, on his own robber fly website, describes their behavior most eloquently:

”If you are lucky enough to see the courtship, that will put the identification out of doubt….they all seem to do it the same way. The female makes herself visible by sitting on a twig usually rather high in the air, on the top of a sapling or tall bush. The male hovers before her, his hind legs out wide to the side, perhaps to show off the red coloring. The female responds by throwing up her hind legs (whether that means yes or no I don't know). If the male is allowed to get close enough, he begins stroking her eyeballs with his front claws while he is still hovering, a delicate operation, one presumes. If she likes him, she will eventually let him sit down beside her, where after a while one thing leads to another.”

Fortunately, another person in our party remarked that it would be wonderful to have a video of the aerial dance we were watching there in Ohio, and I remembered my camera has video capabilities. Here is the resulting….pixelage?

Is it any wonder why entomologists become enamored with asilids? The life history of the majority of species remains a mystery. The larval stage of those few that are known seem to be external parasites of beetle grubs, or the larvae of other insects. Your own observations could yield vital new information as to predator-prey relationships, and/or larval hosts.

I have yet to find any place in North America that does not have a pretty diverse assemblage of robber flies, so I challenge you to go looking, even in your own backyard. I will also bet you are likely to get addicted to these charismatic flies once you find them.

Sources: Hull, Frank M. 1962. Robber Flies of the World: The Genera of the Family Asilidae. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Bulletin 224, Parts 1 and 2. 907 pp.
Lavers, Norman. 2007. “Asilidae: Stenopogoninae,” The Robber Flies of Crowley’s Ridge, Arkansas.
Preston-Mafham, Rod and Ken. 1993. The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behavior. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 320 pp.
Raney, Herschel. 2009. “Heteropogon Page,” Random Acts of Nature.

Wasp Wednesday: Wasps in Love

It seems the theme lately has been insect sex. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen and photographed so many f*ing “bugs” (literally!) as I have in the past week or two. Wasps have been no exception. It is one of those behaviors for which they tend to sit still for a change. It is also a situation in which you can finally tell the subtle differences between the genders (or not so subtle differences in some cases).

Take the example of the pair of Ammophila thread-waisted wasps shown above. The male is the one on top. The tip of his abdomen is rather blunt, and that he is deploying his, um, “hardware.” The female doesn’t seem to like this very much, though. Notice how her abdomen tapers to a point.

One may logically ask how can mating take place when a female wasp has a stinger. Wouldn’t that hurt the male? How can he get his sperm into such a small, sharp opening? Well, the stinger is not involved in copulation. In the evolution of wasps, the egg-laying organ (ovipositor) has in some cases become modified into a retractable stinger that is now used to paralyze prey, and as a weapon of last resort in self-defense. The female’s sex organs are located near the same opening from which the stinger is thrust, but again, the stinger does not participate in mating activities.

While the sexes are very similar in most kinds of wasps, this is not always the case. Above we have a pair of pollen wasps, Pseudomasaris vespoides, the male attempting to court a female that has her head stuck inside a Penstemon flower. Many male wasps are, shall we say….opportunistic in this way. To his credit, he is petting his potential mate, tapping his “chin” on her back. I wish I had video to demonstrate that, but I don’t. The male is larger than the female, with various hooks and other external anatomical features on his abdomen that help him latch onto his mate. Pseudomasaris males also have much longer antennae than the females, terminating in segments that form a club. She has clubbed antennae, too, just much shorter.

Male wasps may have other body parts modified as well. Males of crabronid wasps in the genus Astata have enormous eyes that meet at the top of their heads: all the better to see passing females as he sits atop an elevated perch. He will also chase off competing males.

Above is a male wasp in the genus Crabro. He has the tibial segment of his front leg modified into a broad shield. Scientists speculate that these plates function in displaying to females and other males, and/or as stimulation to the female during courtship. The shields glisten in the sun, reflecting light brightly and perhaps disclosing the location of the perched male to passing females and competing males. During courtship, the male perches atop the female and covers her eyes with his shields. The shields are translucent and create patterns of light perceived by the female (Low and Wcislo, 1992).

There is much competition among males for available females. This was made graphically clear to me earlier this week when I received an image from someone via AllExperts.com, asking me “what behavior is going on here?” The picture showed three male Black and Yellow Mud Daubers, Sceliphron caementarium, stacked on top of a single female. Well, two of the males were stacked on each other, actually.

Females of Eremnophila aureonotata, a thread-waisted wasp, don’t let mating keep them from other activities. The pair shown below is resting, but “engaged” pairs can often be seen flitting from flower to flower just like single wasps. This species is common throughout the eastern U.S. and adjacent southern Canada, so keep a lookout for tandem couples.

In the interest of maintaining my current followers, and in the hopes of recruiting still more, I shall refrain from any comparisons between wasps and Homo sapiens when it comes to sex. I encourage voyeuristic behavior only when it comes to watching insects and arachnids, thank you.

Sources: Bohart, R. M. and A. S. Menke. 1976. Sphecid Wasps of the World: A Generic Revision. Berkeley: University of California Press. 695 pp.
Low, Bobbi S. and William T. Wcislo. 1992. “Male Foretibial Plates and Mating in Crabro cribellifer (Packard) (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) With a Survey of Expanded Male Forelegs in Apoidea,” Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 85(2): 219-223.

Butterfly Love

Spring is in the air here in Tucson, Arizona, and apparently the thoughts of butterflies are turning to love. I wrote the following for the Valentine’s Day issue of the volunteer newsletter at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, but cruising the grounds this past week I saw plenty of native butterflies in “action,” so to speak, like this pair of Giant Swallowtails outside our administration building.

Visitors to Butterfly Magic will never fail to notice when two butterflies are conjoined, and will ask you what is going on with that. Well, ok, so the butterflies themselves are not shy when it comes to courtship and sex. They have a limited amount of time to find acceptable mates and produce the next generation.

Among the more dazzling behaviors butterflies engage in is courtship. There are great differences in courtship behavior from family to family, and even species to species, but you can easily recognize certain postures and flight styles as romance-intended. Females may advertise their availability by perching with wings open and abdomen slightly raised. She may also “call” males by releasing a special chemical called a pheromone. Males detect the wind-wafted scent with their antennae and then quickly recognize her visually. Male giant silkmoths like the African Moon Moth and the Forbes Moth can home in on a female from up to a mile away (maybe even longer) by following her pheromone trail.

Male butterflies of many species have pheromones, too, designed to communicate individual fitness to a potential mate. Once he locates a female the male must convince her he is a worthy investment. He may do this by following her in flight until she lands, then hovering over her and showering her with his own “cologne” emitted from special scent patches on his wings, or from “hair pencils,” glands that he extrudes from the rear of his abdomen. Males of some Heliconiinae (longwings) go a step further and sprinkle an anti-aphrodisiac once mating has occurred. This discourages other males from usurping his genetic investment in that particular female’s offspring.

Should the female be disinterested in a suitor, she changes her posture, pointing her abdomen nearly straight up and essentially “mooning” the male.

The pursuit and hovering displays are characteristic of the male Priamus Birdwings and the Heliconius longwings. Morphos are less elegant. Males will land next to perched females and aggressively “nudge” them into compliance. Watch as a male bends his abdomen forward in an attempt to copulate.

Compatible males and females may eventually couple, tail-to-tail, facing in opposite directions. Males might even hang limply from the female as she remains perched. Occasionally the pair will even take flight, one of them carrying the other. Butterflies can remain coupled for as little as a few minutes to several hours. We had one pair of Priamus Birdwings (shown above) engaged for so long that the male actually perished while still connected to the female. While lengthy mating leaves both butterflies vulnerable to predation, it also prevents other males from mating with a given female, increasing the odds that the male will see some of his genes represented in the next generation produced by that female. Nature is full of such trade-offs.

Butterflies have the same sex organs as other animals, but they go by different names. The male penis is called an aedeagus (ee-dee-AY-gus). The shape and configuration of the aedeagus varies from species to species, largely preventing hybridization between different species. He also has claspers, the external genitalia that hold the couple together during sex. The female has a vagina (the “bursa copulatrix”), but also has a “receptaculum seminis” or “spermatheca,” a sac that stores sperm. Her eggs will not be fertilized until she lays them.

Whew! I managed to get through all that without even talking about contraception and the Butterfly Vatican.

A pair of Texan Crescents is shown above.