Bean weevils get a kick out of mates.The battle of the sexes turns out to be a literal description of the domestic life of the bean weevil bean weevil, common name for a well-known cosmopolitan species of beetle (Acanthoscelides obtectus) that attacks beans and is thought to be native to the United States. It belongs to the family Bruchidae, the seed beetles. , say British researchers. These insects, Callosobruchus maculatus, breed in stored grain throughout the tropics tropics, also called tropical zone or torrid zone, all the land and water of the earth situated between the Tropic of Cancer at lat. 23 1-2°N and the Tropic of Capricorn at lat. 23 1-2°S. . The male's agenda apparently includes reducing the chances that a female will mate with any weevil weevil, common name for certain beetles of the snout beetle family (Curculionidae), small, usually dull-colored, hard-bodied insects. The mouthparts of snout beetles are modified into down-curved snouts, or beaks, adapted for boring into plants; the jaws are at the after she has mated him, say Helen S. Crudgington and Mike T. Siva-Jothy of the University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Reputation Sheffield was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001 and has consistently appeared as their top 20 institutions. in England. In the Oct. 19 NATURE, they report that the male body part that enters the female reproductive tract bristles with spikes. During mating, it does considerable tissue damage. That's hardly an inducement Inducement Electra incited brother, Orestes, to kill their mother and her lover. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 92; Gk. Lit.: Electra, Orestes] Hezekiah exhorts Judah to stand fast against Assyrians. [O.T. for multiple matings, and females that mate again despite the injury don't live as long as those that mate once. The females aren't passive victims. While mating, they kick males vigorously, apparently shortening the encounters: When researchers kept females from using their legs, matings lasted longer and caused more injury. Bean weevils, conclude the researchers, represent an unusually clear example of the evolutionary male-female arms race. |
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