“I'm not guilty! He came! "

Views are often damaged by the existing ecosystems. Then they will eat the entire environment of some local appearance, then they will begin to hunt for its prey or to him. Recently, the University of the University (University of Ackland) in New Zealand, led by Gregory I. Holwell), found another mechanism through which the Ecumenies interfere with the lives of local views: obstructing the performance of marital duties with subsequent eating [1].

The biodiversity of New Zealand has already suffered significantly from animals brought by a white man. Unfortunately, this process continues. In 1978, the South African Mother of God appeared on the island Miomantis CAF - FRA , which actively displaces the local endemic look Or thodera NOVAEZEALANDIAE .

Researchers could not understand how for a long time how M.​ CAF FRA spoil the life of the New Zealand praying mantes. In the end, they suggested that males O. Novaezealandiae accept South African females for representatives of their appearance and rush to them, instead of caring for their own ladies. Females of the Bogomolov attract sexual partners with flying pheromones, and New Zealand males could confuse the smell.

Scientists checked their hypothesis in the laboratories: they caught the larvae of the older mantis larvae in the vicinity of the nervous of the nervous of the mantis, and then began to launch local males in a Y-shaped design made of glass tubes one at a time. Her short processes led to cameras in which females of different types sat. The cameras were tightened with an opaque nylon, so that the males could not see the females and focused only on the smell.

The New Zealand Pogorish confidently headed for female m . Caffra , when the second camera was empty (with a probability of about 0.75), and if the second camera was occupied by a female O.​ NOVAEZEA LANDIAE , they still stomped with a frequency of more than 0.8 to a stranger. Consequently, the female female pheromones M. Caffra for New Zealand males are so attractive that the ladies of their appearance compared to those who came for them are the same as an empty place. Therefore , during the breeding period O. NOVAEZEALANDIAE , instead of happy to make their own females, spend time and effort on searching and stinging the inappropriate partner.

That would be more half -worn, but the meeting of the male o . Novaezelandiae with an overseas chosen one does not promise him anything good. Females M.​ Caffra , like many other types of mantis, practice sexy cannibalism and after mating, or even before it, bite their heads, and can be completely eaten if they are very hungry. The males of these types, in turn, have developed an appropriate behavior strategy that increases their chances of survival. They avoid hungry and mated females, approach the lady slowly and behind, trying to maintain a safe distance until the last moment.

Meanwhile, O.​ NOVAEZEALANDIAE is not characteristic of sexy cannibalism, and New Zealand males are completely not ready for such a development of events. For several decades, which have passed since 1978, the deadline for evolution is insignificant. O.​ NOVAEZEALANDIAE They did not have time to adapt to the aggression of new females and, when contacting them, die several times more often than males M.​ Caffra .

Researchers set up South African females with males of their appearance and with O.​ Novaezelandi ae . After these meetings, 9 out of 23 males m . Caffra and 11 out of 16 O.​ NOVAEZELANDIAE . Males who happily reached females demonstrated the behavior characteristic of mating, apparently, they really were going to begin copulation. And what happened next, scientists do not write.

Flying substances act long distances and, therefore, the only female m . Caffra can attract many males, including from remote populations. A few females are able to destroy males O.​ NOVAEZEALANDIAE in an amount sufficient in order to influence the number of endemic New Zealand mantis and change the ratio of sexes in the population.

In order to finally make sure of the fairness of their hypothesis, researchers plan to check the attractive power of pheromones m . Caffra in natural conditions. The behavior of males in the Y-shaped device may differ from that in the free air and at a great distance from the female. In addition, in the laboratory of females spruce, and in the field it can be angry and hungry, so they often rush to their own and other people's males. We will wait for the results of field observations.

The situation in which the sexual pheromones of one species attract representatives of another is not unique. For example, male mantis Mantis Religiosa beckon signals Tenodera Aridfolia sinensis . But as the New York University in Fredonia recently shown the specialists of the University of New York, the mantis-cannibali maximum honestly honest with males [2]. Their pheromones carry comprehensive information about the physiological state of the insect, and males know how to extract this information. They are attracted to the hungry females than to be full, and not as much to the already mated - not as much as virgins. An ideal object is a well -fed female who longs to leave offspring, they visit such males most often. And whoever confused and got into the wrong place - he is to blame.

But of insidiousness you can blame the female Svetlyak family Photuris , also called "fatal women" [3]. They purposefully hunt for males of a different kind, Photinus . Svetlyaks in search of females fly at night and blink, and females, seeing their signals, blink in response. Light signals are vidospecific, but the insidious females of the photographs imitate them, and when the deceived photinus flies to the “fatal woman”, she devours it. At the same time, Foturis’s female is interested not only in food, but also by the protective steroids of Luci-Bufagin, which are found in the body of the patio of the owls, and the Foturis is not able to synthesize them. A similar compound, Bu-falin, contains the poison of the Chinese toad, so the researchers gave toxins Svetlyakov such a name, combining the Latin words “light” (Lux), and “toad” (bufo).

Poisonous steroids protect fireflies from jumping spiders Phudippus : the predator will attack, taste the poisoned hemolymph and immediately drop an inedible sacrifice. Females of the Foturis, collected in the field, contain Lucibufagin in different quantities, and the more it is, the less often the predators attack them, and not only Phudippus , but also other types of spiders and ants. The most interesting thing is that the males of the Foturis contain Lucibufagin, and it is not entirely clear where they get it from. Insects that go out of the larva have no poison in hemolymph, so males Photuris , most likely, attack males of fotinuses.

Many animals and plants draw protective substances from the environment, even people use medicines to poison microbes, but Photuris , nevertheless, represent an exception, since they extract Lucibafagin extremely aggressively. Sometimes people, discussing the relations of the sexes, notice that, here, they say, how just everything is in animals. No, it’s not easy for them, especially for cannibals.

Natalia Reznik

1. Fea MP, Stanley MC, Holwell Gi. Fatal Attraction: Sexually Cannibalistic Invaders Attraact Naive National Mantids. Biol Lett. 2013, 9: 20130746. Http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl 2013.0746.

2. Lelito JP, Brown WD. Mate Attraction by Females in a Sexually Cannibalistic Praying Mantis.behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 2008, 63, 313-320. (DOI: 10.1007/ S00265-008-0663-8).

3. Eisner et al., Firefly "Femmes Fatales" Acquire Defensive Steroids (Lucibufagins) from Their Firefly Prey, PROC. Natl. ACAD. SCI. USA 1997, Vol. 94, pp. 9723-9728.