# Reproductive Parts



## MantidLord (Oct 3, 2009)

Hey guys, I was wondering if there are any of you who could provide me with the reproductive parts of mantids. Also, if you know the organs too, then please don't be shy. Thanks.


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## kamakiri (Oct 5, 2009)

I can only help with terms I think I know...

Female:

Cerci

Gonapophyses - Valves or Valvulae or Valvifers

Gonoplac

Oviduct

Ovipositor - Subgenital plate

Ovaries

Spermatheca

Male:

Claspers

Subgenital plate - 'Cup'

...hope that helps kick-off your research.


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## MantidLord (Oct 5, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> I can only help with terms I think I know...Female:
> 
> Cerci
> 
> ...


Thanks a lot Kamakiri. That's very helpful. Thought this thread was just gonna slip into the shadows for a minute.


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## kamakiri (Oct 6, 2009)

MantidLord said:


> Thanks a lot Kamakiri. That's very helpful. Thought this thread was just gonna slip into the shadows for a minute.


No problemo. I was posting pictures of the valves gyrating out of the ovipositor and I thought these might help visualize:

Bigger pic







Bigger pic


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## Rick (Oct 6, 2009)

Got a pic like that of the male?


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 6, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> No problemo. I was posting pictures of the valves gyrating out of the ovipositor and I thought these might help visualize:Bigger pic
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very cool, Kamakiri! The only thing that I would add is that the dissogenous deviation of the disparate dingleberry is the oohlala.


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## MantidLord (Oct 6, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> No problemo. I was posting pictures of the valves gyrating out of the ovipositor and I thought these might help visualize:Bigger pic
> 
> 
> 
> ...


YES!!! You're awesome!  Thanks a lot!


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## kamakiri (Oct 7, 2009)

Rick said:


> Got a pic like that of the male?


Not of a ghost. There was one of my limbata males that had everything hanging out after his first time mating. There were three of what I think are the three asymmetrical claspers and the anus visible and identifiable by me. I'll try to dig it up and label it best I can. It also doesn't help that in my recollection, there aren't as many diagrams of the male reproductive insect parts in general, let alone mantises. And to make matters worse, the males usually 'put everything away' once their done. So there's less opportunity to photograph.

Phil- :lol: 

MantidLord - Glad to help  Lemme know if you want me to post the version without the 'dingleberry' note. :lol:


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 7, 2009)

Kamakiri: I looked at yr pic and its labeling more closely, and I've got say that even with my limited knowledge of a female mantid's naughty bits, I am seriously impressed.

Mantidlord: You don't really think that you are going to get off this easily, do you? I'm as sure as I can be that Kamakiri got all the bits labelled correctly, but no picture like this can or is intended to give you much insight into female insect genitalia. If yr HS textbook doesn't have any good pics (and often, they don't), Google, &lt;insect genitalia orthoptera&gt; . You aren't going to find a pic/diagram of a mantis, but you will find a grasshopper or cockroach, which is close enough for government work. Learn why Kamakiri used the numbers 8 and 9 in his labeling, and find out how these bits act as valves. You also need to check out the third valve, the gonostyle.

Good luck! We shall be giving you a test!


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## Rick (Oct 7, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> Not of a ghost. There was one of my limbata males that had everything hanging out after his first time mating. There were three of what I think are the three asymmetrical claspers and the anus visible and identifiable by me. I'll try to dig it up and label it best I can. It also doesn't help that in my recollection, there aren't as many diagrams of the male reproductive insect parts in general, let alone mantises. And to make matters worse, the males usually 'put everything away' once their done. So there's less opportunity to photograph.Phil- :lol:
> 
> MantidLord - Glad to help  Lemme know if you want me to post the version without the 'dingleberry' note. :lol:


Any species will work.


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## MantidLord (Oct 7, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Kamakiri: I looked at yr pic and its labeling more closely, and I've got say that even with my limited knowledge of a female mantid's naughty bits, I am seriously impressed.Mantidlord: You don't really think that you are going to get off this easily, do you? I'm as sure as I can be that Kamakiri got all the bits labelled correctly, but no picture like this can or is intended to give you much insight into female insect genitalia. If yr HS textbook doesn't have any good pics (and often, they don't), Google, &lt;insect genitalia orthoptera&gt; . You aren't going to find a pic/diagram of a mantis, but you will find a grasshopper or cockroach, which is close enough for government work. Learn why Kamakiri used the numbers 8 and 9 in his labeling, and find out how these bits act as valves. You also need to check out the third valve, the gonostyle.
> 
> Good luck! We shall be giving you a test!


Kamakiri: No, lol those pics and diagrams are perfect, thanks.

Phil: I'll definitely do that. I don't know why I gave up after failing when I typed mantis, but if the genitalia are closely related to each other, then I'll research it. Thanks Phil for the info, and of course my HS textbook fails miserably when it comes to insects. &lt;_&lt; I'm soaking all the info up, and rest assure, I'll pass the test.


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## kamakiri (Oct 9, 2009)

Male parts:

Bigger pic






Bigger pic






As requested  

But I should note, that I have several questions on what is really what in those labels. It is possible that each clasper as I've labelled is a phallomere, or the whole stem with the 3 claspers may be one phallomere. Also not sure where the gonopore is, or if it is at the tip of what may be a pseudo-penis. I have more reading and research to do.


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## MantidLord (Oct 9, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> Male parts:Bigger pic
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Amazing. Great detail. And I'm definitely gonna research the parts.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 9, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> Male parts, as requested  But I should note, that I have several questions on what is really what in those labels. It is possible that each clasper as I've labelled is a phallomere, or the whole stem with the 3 claspers may be one phallomere. Also not sure where the gonopore is, or if it is at the tip of what may be a pseudo-penis. I have more reading and research to do.


Some while ago (time flies for old farts) a good friend of mine, in her second year at uni, told me how glad she was to be doing vertebrate anatomy after the "yellow goo" that is the subject of first year, invertebrate anatomy. It's true, and it is hard to distinguish one bit of goo from another and extraordinarily hard to photograph.

In case you didn't know, folks, you are almost certainly looking at the only detailed pix of mantis genitalia available to public view. Entomologists, as a rule, just aren't interested in mantids. They are too busy studying "Manduca," or "Bombyx". These pix are quite extraordinary, so there.  

Grant: If your identification of the "claspers (gonostyles) is correct, that would mean that there are three of them. Usually, organs occur in pairs (sometimes fused to make a single organ). I would strongly suspect that the central clasper is the gonophysis.

I would place the epiproct a little north of where you have it. It's the part that just extends above the nearside cercus, I think, an atrophied 11th segment. The paraproct, its other half, should lie beneath the anus so that both plates frame it (and yes, "proct" comes from Gr "proktos" for anus, hence the dreaded proctoscope  ).

What I don't want to do, in my ignorance, is misname a part that you have right, thus spreading unnecessary confusion. So I'll stop there.

The person to review this, as usual, should be Christian.

There have been some exceptionally good threads on the forum lately. This is certainly on of them.


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## yen_saw (Oct 9, 2009)

Nice pic Grant, now i need to get the Cannon 100 mm IS macro


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## Christian (Oct 9, 2009)

Males have three phallomeres. Two dorsal and one ventral one. The ventral one phylogenetically also had a corresponding pair, but all dictyopteran genitalia are asymmetrical, with the second ventral phallomere reduced. Unfortunately, while these kind of pics worked well with the female parts, the male pic is somewhat unclear. Usually, to see something, you have to dissect the genitalia and spread them, so overlapping is minimized and structures become visible. The "claspers" are correctly named processes, depending on position there are anterior and posterior processes, usually found on the left dorsal and the ventral phallomere. The heavily sclerotized part is the ventral process of the right dorsal phallomere, though the phalloid apophysis (attached to the left dorsal phallomere) may be elongated and/or sclerified as well. Complicated, I know, but mantid genitalia are rather diverse, so all kinds of processes exist, sometimes with bristles, or spines, or being very long and curved, with one or multiple points etc. It takes a while until one's able to name all structures.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 10, 2009)

It occurs to me that someone might have missed Kamakiri' pix and Christian's comments, so here they are back again! I found a very nice illustration of all three phallomeres, based on a real mantis!

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1665/1082...RT%5D2.0.CO%3B2

(See Fig. 4 and enlarge)


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## Katnapper (Oct 10, 2009)

Very nice thread, Grant!


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## MantidLord (Oct 10, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> There have been some exceptionally good threads on the forum lately. This is certainly on of them.


Yes.  I made a thread that brought in new information. Thanks Grant.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 11, 2009)

Just a quick note. After Christian's discussion on the phallomeres, I read up on them as well as I could, and while walking with Sunny and learning of her adventures as a level 80 Blood Elf warlock, I went over the male genitalia of hemimetabolous insects (at least Mantodea, Blattodea and and Orthoptera). I described them by referring to them in the order in which they were used during copulation, and the first one had her laughing her head off, convinced that I was making the name up. Any idea what it is folks? It's not mentioned in any general entomology text that I have ever seen, but you will find it here: http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1665/1082...ournalCode=orth Enlarge and view figs 16 _et seq_. You may not find it as funny as Sunny did; I was using my hands to show how everything worked.


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## kamakiri (Oct 19, 2009)

A generalized picture of reproductive organs:







I think it all applies to mantids.

Christian, thanks for the clarification. Always a big help!

And how am I getting credit for starting a thread that I didn't start? Thanks, MantidLord!


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## MantidLord (Oct 19, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> I think it all applies to mantids.Christian, thanks for the clarification. Always a big help!
> 
> And how am I getting credit for starting a thread that I didn't start? Thanks, MantidLord!


Nice pic, so is that a generalized image of insects? Or just every organism? And no problem Kamakiri, even though you did contribute the most info to this thread.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 19, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> A generalized picture of reproductive organs:


Nice, helpful diagrams, Grant, but the University of Minnesota may be in breach of yr copyright!


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## kamakiri (Oct 19, 2009)

MantidLord said:


> Nice pic, so is that a generalized image of insects? Or just every organism? And no problem Kamakiri, even though you did contribute the most info to this thread.


Generalized insect info. And should apply to mantids. I believe the 'accessory gland' in mantises is the ooth foam/protein coating source.



PhilinYuma said:


> Nice, helpful diagrams, Grant, but the University of Minnesota may be in breach of yr copyright!


Naw. Sharing for educational purposes falls under 'fair use'.  Just don't pay me for it and I'll be okay  But you're right...I should have cited the source. Arguably, by only linking the picture with the url intact instead of copying...I effectively did cite the source.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 20, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> Generalized insect info. And should apply to mantids. I believe the 'accessory gland' in mantises is the ooth foam/protein coating source.Naw. Sharing for educational purposes falls under 'fair use'.  Just don't pay me for it and I'll be okay  But you're right...I should have cited the source. Arguably, by only linking the picture with the url intact instead of copying...I effectively did cite the source.


1) Yes, you're right about the function of the accessory gland in mantids. In lesser critters, it excretes the cement that holds the eggs to their substrate.

2) Ha,ha! I don't usually go tracking down every pic that is posted on the forum, but the one of the internal genitalia had a kind of nostalgic look that wasn't satisfied by the U of MN citation. At least your source was easily traced, even without the URL, but who ever drew those pix appears to have deliberately plagiarized the illustrations in R.E. Snodgrass(1935) _Principles of Insect Morphology,_ McGraw-Hill, New York.

Can you imagine, this book was published _before I was born_ and folks are still copying his illustrations with permission (c.f. Marc J. Klowden (2002) _Physiological Systems in Insects,_ Academic Press, San Diego) or without.


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## Christian (Oct 20, 2009)

Yeah, that's because only few morphological work is done todays. People and money-givers wrongly think that if it was done once it's for good. But today we have new methods and new insights and there is a lot of stuff that has to be re-evaluated.


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## kamakiri (Nov 9, 2009)

For comparison, a 'fully functional' limbata male close-up:






Click - full size


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