Bisexual cockroach dads

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Bi courtship among hissing roaches could be a sign of a superdad. The traits could be a behavioral syndrome.

In a lab test, some 20 percent of male giant hissing roaches went romantic when they met another male, says David Logue of the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Males can’t actually mate, but flirtatious Gromphadorhina portentosa males, some outweighing a mouse, hissed gently and made the thrusting gestures of courtship among male roachkind.

Same-sex courters had no objection to females and, given a chance, courted them with unusual ardor. These linked tendencies, flirting with males and wowing females, define a behavioral syndrome, Logue said at the Animal Behavior Society meeting held in Snowbird, Utah, this week. That link, he speculated, may end up explaining the evolutionary puzzle of male flirtation among roaches.

...

The link between the male flirtation and the intense courtship of females is what Logue calls the libido syndrome.

To test the results of the super-flirt syndrome, Logue let roaches mate heterosexually if they chose. Then he monitored the mated females for the three months or so of hissing roach pregnancy.

Instead of just laying eggs after fertilization, the hissing roaches extrude their egg case only temporarily. “It looks like a string of yellow pearls,” Logue says. Females reposition the egg string and retract it into a pouch. Months later, mom gives birth to dozens of little ones, baby- white roaches that turn brown in a few hours.

Broods of baby roaches tended to be larger if the dad had shown a taste for courting other males, Logue said.

Maybe this abundance of young could end up explaining how male courtship persists, Logue says. So far, he says, he doesn’t see a benefit for it in its own right, but perhaps evolutionary forces have favored the male-female part of the syndrome and the male-male flirtation survives as spillover.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id..._cockroach_dads

[IAMX 3,055]

What is up with cockroaches as of late? Weren't people trying to exterminate them? Now they're predicting Presidential races, and showing what most of us that had a college education know --> how homosexuality isn't a choice after all and happens naturally in the animal kingdom.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

What is up with cockroaches as of late? Weren't people trying to exterminate them? Now they're predicting Presidential races, and showing what most of us that had a college education know --> how homosexuality isn't a choice after all and happens naturally in the animal kingdom.

By the way, the McCain cockroach won easily.

The Obama cockroach refused to leave the starting point. The McCain cockroach left the starting point but fell asleep as soon as it reached the end.

No joke.

[Ban Hammer 13,349]

What is up with cockroaches as of late? Weren't people trying to exterminate them? Now they're predicting Presidential races, and showing what most of us that had a college education know --> how homosexuality isn't a choice after all and happens naturally in the animal kingdom.

By the way, the McCain cockroach won easily.

The Obama cockroach refused to leave the starting point. The McCain cockroach left the starting point but fell asleep as soon as it reached the end.

No joke.

which one was tapping it's foot?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What is up with cockroaches as of late? Weren't people trying to exterminate them? Now they're predicting Presidential races, and showing what most of us that had a college education know --> how homosexuality isn't a choice after all and happens naturally in the animal kingdom.

By the way, the McCain cockroach won easily.

The Obama cockroach refused to leave the starting point. The McCain cockroach left the starting point but fell asleep as soon as it reached the end.

No joke.

which one was tapping it's foot?

That would be Lieberman's roach who not only hisses and makes thrusting motions to McCain's roach, he meticulously clean's the McCain roach's antennae using his mandibles. It's disgusting to watch.

Edited August 24, 2008 by Jabberwocky

[IAMX 3,055]

I think the Lieberman cockroach declared war on the Obama and McCain cockroaches, then took away their porn and video games.

Edited August 24, 2008 by SRVT

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think the Lieberman cockroach declared war on the Obama and McCain cockroaches, then took away their porn and video games.

Definitely the most homeliest looking cockroach of the bunch...has the face of a shar-pei and the voice of Snagglepuss.

[Teacher Mark 53]

Speaking of roaches: