# Mating 2 males with the same female?



## kitkat39 (Jun 29, 2011)

What happens when you mate the same mantis female with two different males? Might be a stupid question, but I know that with some other insect species, the next male that comes along will actually reach in and scoop out all of the sperm from the previous male so ensure that it is HIS genes that get passed on. Not sure if mantis do this or not.

I just like to try to breed things to try to bring out certain genes to the next generation rather than just breeding them just to breed them. I'm just not sure what the case would be if I tried to mate a female with another male before she's even laid her first ooth. Maybe 50/50? Maybe no genes from the 2nd male that comes along? I dunno..... just thought I'd ask to see if anyone else can shine some light.


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## psyconiko (Jun 29, 2011)

I think this is a good question!

I also select specimens before mating and usually I mate my females more than once when I can.

Since mantis males do not "fight" for females,it might be possible that the female is able to keep both gametes from males and choose the "best" one like some other animals...But I do not know, we have to keep experimentating...and open a genetic lab


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## massaman (Jun 29, 2011)

Nope they dont not like some other animals do


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## hibiscusmile (Jun 29, 2011)

I can honestly say.... I DON'T HAVE A CLUE! :lol:


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## MantidLord (Jun 29, 2011)

Maybe the ones with the stronger genes are used. Or like someone said, both are sued. That's why I try to mate my females with multiple males.


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## psyconiko (Jun 29, 2011)

MantidLord said:


> Maybe the ones with the stronger genes are used. Or like someone said, both are sued. That's why I try to mate my females with multiple males.


Yes there is a fly able to do that "Scathophaga stercoraria".When mated more than once the female can reject the sperm of a male and keep an other.There is a good article on wiki called Sperm competition.


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## Colorcham427 (Jun 30, 2011)

the hills have eyes!!!!!!!!! LOL I always have pondered at this bro. I think the more love the better off they are lol, based on content of course lol not saying they'll hatch more nymphs...


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## Rick (Jun 30, 2011)

MantidLord said:


> Maybe the ones with the stronger genes are used. Or like someone said, both are sued. That's why I try to mate my females with multiple males.


Really no such thing as "stronger" genes. If I had to guess I would imagine that the offspring will be a mix from both males. I have no idea if any research has been done with this in mantids but it would be interesting to know.


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## lancaster1313 (Jun 30, 2011)

Mantis paternity test, anyone? :lol:


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## MantidLord (Jun 30, 2011)

Rick said:


> Really no such thing as "stronger" genes. If I had to guess I would imagine that the offspring will be a mix from both males. I have no idea if any research has been done with this in mantids but it would be interesting to know.


Yeah, maybe. An experiment on this would definitely be interesting. Especially considering the females don't really select which males to mate with (you can argue that they eat the "unfit" ones, but that's not always true). If it is a mixture of both, I wonder how it's distributed.


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## Termite48 (Jun 30, 2011)

Not so sure which female insects (other than crickets) do demonstrate the ability to select sperm (cryptic female choice), but some do. The male that has the "sloppy seconds" title here, does in some species have the physical wherewithall to remove the prexisting sperm, and then inject his. Kinda reminds one of the male dog peeing on the fire hydrant syndrome. What happens to the scent of the prior male? Genetically speaking, the more or the larger the gene pool, the better for the offspring( genetic diversity) in the long run, except when mating and trying for specific physical traits that only exist in one or a very few males. Still one is better using more than one male from a genetic point of view. Also you might want to look into the phenomenon which is shown by males when copulating, when they tap on the dorsal surface (wings) of the female, while they are insemmenating the female.


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## patrickfraser (Jun 30, 2011)

I try to mate my females with multiple partners when possible. What if the first male is shooting blanks? I like to hedge my bets, "just in case". I'm a mantis pimp daddy and I try to get as much biodiversity "injected" into the line as possible.


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## dragon (Aug 9, 2011)

*sigh* I was hoping someone had an answer for this very question.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 9, 2011)

dragons_maelstrom said:


> *sigh* I was hoping someone had an answer for this very question.


No need for a sigh! All of this has been discussed and explained before, and as Rick suggests, anyone who talks about "stronger genes" should go on the Internet and check out the basics of genetics or --gasp -- buy a book on the subject.

I have mentioned many times, with links, the research at Macquarrie uni in Sydney that has been work on sperm competition in mantids for years.

So yes, the more males that you introduce to a female the better, and the closer it is likely to be to the situation in nature, but if you only have two males and a bunch of females, realize that once eaten, a male has little reproductive value.


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## Ntsees (Aug 9, 2011)

If you mate the female with 2 or more males, you'll just get more genetic diversity. At one time, I did mate my female with a second male when the previous males spermatophore was still with the female. The second male did remove the spermatophore but I doubt he removed all of the previous males sperm.


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## ismart (Aug 10, 2011)

Ntsees said:


> If you mate the female with 2 or more males, you'll just get more genetic diversity. At one time, I did mate my female with a second male when the previous males spermatophore was still with the female. The second male did remove the spermatophore but I doubt he removed all of the previous males sperm.


This is interesting! I had just the opposite. My second male was unable to make a proper connection due to last males spermatophore was in the way. He rode on her back till it was absorbed, or rejected! The specimens were _Hierodula multispina_. Ntsees, were the specimens you are talking about _Iris oratoria_? If so, then i would not be the slightest bit surprised if the second male was able to remove the first males spermatophore. Iris males are relentless when they are trying to mate!


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## Ntsees (Aug 10, 2011)

ismart said:


> This is interesting! I had just the opposite. My second male was unable to make a proper connection due to last males spermatophore was in the way. He rode on her back till it was absorbed, or rejected! The specimens were _Hierodula multispina_. Ntsees, were the specimens you are talking about _Iris oratoria_? If so, then i would not be the slightest bit surprised if the second male was able to remove the first males spermatophore. Iris males are relentless when they are trying to mate!


Yes, it is _Iris oratoria_. But I forgot to mention that I've also experienced what you mentioned too - that the second male wasn't able to mate at all because of the first's spermatophore.


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## dragon (Aug 11, 2011)

PhilinYuma said:


> anyone who talks about "stronger genes" should go on the Internet and check out the basics of genetics or --gasp -- buy a book on the subject.
> 
> So yes, the more males that you introduce to a female the better, and the closer it is likely to be to the situation in nature, but if you only have two males and a bunch of females, realize that once eaten, a male has little reproductive value.


Well the concept of "stronger genes" isn't the issue ... actually I found that rather amusing. But then I have a biology background.   

What I was hoping to find the answer to was whether, after a mating with 2nd male (or 3rd or whatever), would the resulting offspring be just his or a mix of both males or.... Not being familiar with the female's sperm storage capabilities, I was wondering if all sperm -- from however many males -- gets dumped into the same reservoir and as such gets mixed together, or whether there is some sort of compartmentalization by which one male's sperm is "isolated" from anothers and if, in that event, there is some sort of prioritization determining which male's sperm will be used. And while some may find this an odd query -- the world can be a very odd place.


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## nebrakacinese (Aug 11, 2011)

My first mating of mantids I was really ,really early to the hobby.I bred a female with 2 males,not at the same time of course.It was successful and I raised the nymps.I was thinking the other day,if mantids ovulate much like other animals? My first mating was of chinese.


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## patrickfraser (Aug 12, 2011)

never mind.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 12, 2011)

dragons_maelstrom said:


> Well the concept of "stronger genes" isn't the issue ... actually I found that rather amusing. But then I have a biology background.
> 
> What I was hoping to find the answer to was whether, after a mating with 2nd male (or 3rd or whatever), would the resulting offspring be just his or a mix of both males or.... Not being familiar with the female's sperm storage capabilities, I was wondering if all sperm -- from however many males -- gets dumped into the same reservoir and as such gets mixed together, or whether there is some sort of compartmentalization by which one male's sperm is "isolated" from anothers and if, in that event, there is some sort of prioritization determining which male's sperm will be used. And while some may find this an odd query -- the world can be a very odd place.


I don't know if your biology background extends to entomology, but if so, you will know that , since entomologists don't want to kill mantids, they don't study them very much. However, there are several items of secondary evidence that if two males mate with one female, and this has been observed in the field and in the hobby, then there is a chance that some of the female zygotes, at least, will be fertilized by the second male. One of these is the fact that often the male will remain on the female for some time after fertilization, even though this action increases his chance of being eaten. The usual theory, supported in the case of other animals, is that he is preventing another male from copulating. Other evidence of fertilization by more than one male is provided by the strange case of the Australian genus Ciulfina, when male genitalia depend either to the right or the left. Research into whether one tendency or the other is more effectively reproductive is based on the recognition of multiple inseminations by different males.


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## Malti (Aug 12, 2011)

dragons_maelstrom said:


> Well the concept of "stronger genes" isn't the issue ... actually I found that rather amusing. But then I have a biology background.
> 
> What I was hoping to find the answer to was whether, after a mating with 2nd male (or 3rd or whatever), would the resulting offspring be just his or a mix of both males or.... Not being familiar with the female's sperm storage capabilities, I was wondering if all sperm -- from however many males -- gets dumped into the same reservoir and as such gets mixed together, or whether there is some sort of compartmentalization by which one male's sperm is "isolated" from anothers and if, in that event, there is some sort of prioritization determining which male's sperm will be used. And while some may find this an odd query -- the world can be a very odd place.


like bees you mean? I got a friend who raises them, and he notices placid/aggresive differences from time to time...that is when the brood changes "father"


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## nebrakacinese (Aug 12, 2011)

Please enlighten me on your never mind, PM me at least maybe I can learn something from you.


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## nebrakacinese (Aug 12, 2011)

Hello Mr. Patrick Fraser,just wanted to ask the question ,what does the slang mean ,,. never mind, means, to you. I had always taken the meaning of a negative connotation.Now I can see you have much more experience than I do.So maybe,you can PM me and tell me about this term.Maybe this will help me in my care of mantids.Be looking forward to be hearing from you.


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## kitkat39 (Aug 13, 2011)

I really only brought this up because I had a HUGE male Deroplatys Lobata that was noticeably bigger than all of the others and he also had an amazing looking shield. I had one female that was possibly already mated, but the rest were way too young to mate and I didn't want to take the chance to have him get eaten if he were to mount. I also didn't want to take the chance of mating him with one that was possibly already mated as well because it would have been bad if his genes could not pass on and with the chance of him getting eaten during mating, I would not have been a happy camper.

I wanted to pass on his genes and only his genes, really. Unfortunately, he mounted many times, but was never able to properly connect and eventually died of old age. :-/ Oh well..... Better luck next time....


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## dragon (Aug 14, 2011)

kitkat39 said:


> I really only brought this up because I had a HUGE male Deroplatys Lobata ....


I'm glad you brought the topic up no matter what reason KK as I had wondered about this myself.   

PY, thanks for the info! (Btw background in Bio &amp; Zoology but no strict emphasis in Ent. Most of my knowledge in that area has been through reading/research &amp; observation motivated by personal interest.)

Though I realize answering such a Q is likely not high on most researchers lists, it would be interesting (to me at least) to learn of a more definitive answer. Perhaps someone will develop a way to tag/mark (radioactively or otherwise) the sperm of one male -- without damaging said sperm -- and then see how many offspring of a double mated female carry those tags of that one tagged male. I know it's asking a lot but I can dream can't I? LOL


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## nebrakacinese (Aug 27, 2011)

Please I'm not trying to be contraversial by comparing to other species.The guppy for instance,has to have so many litters before the sperm packets run dry from one male before the next male sperm packets will start siring, the next litter.The same is for chickens.I have raised each for a number of years.These animals of course are not mantids,And this may not apply at all to them,just some thing to think about.I hope this post does not draw any criticism that I recieved earlier in the thread.But I believe these principals apply to the species I mentioned,as I've seen it myself.


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