Abstract
Simple SummaryIt has been reported that members from all vertebrate classes occasionally attempt copulations with dead male or female individuals, but until now no reliable report exists that insects too may show such necrophilic behaviour. We observed and described how a male cicada from Jinxiu town in southern China repeatedly tried to mate with a dead male conspecific. There are several ways to explain this unusual behaviour, but we believe that possibly a lack of females, the somewhat larger than normal size of the dead male individual and the latter’s passivity have been involved. This is the first report of a male insect mounting a dead male and attempting to copulate with it.The unusual case of a male Cryptotympana atrata cicada from China attempting to mate with a dead male conspecific is described and illustrated. Although hitherto unreported, necrophilic behaviour in the form of an attempted necrocoitus, involving dead male or female corpses, may not be as isolated a case as has been previously assumed, but it does not seem to have been mentioned earlier in the entomological literature. Although the described behaviour could have been an expression of a lack of opportunity to locate a cooperative female, several other possibilities, referred to in the Discussion, exist and should not be dismissed.
Highlights
The fact that males of vertebrate animals sometimes copulate with dead females has been reported from all vertebrate classes
Mating with dead females has been described in lizards [1] and snakes [2], and for birds there exist published reports involving pigeons [3], sand martins [4] and penguins [5]
In the case we observed, penetration was attempted while the dead male was mounted
Summary
The fact that males of vertebrate animals sometimes copulate with dead females has been reported from all vertebrate classes. One of the authors (V.B.M.-R.) has seen male guppy fish (Lebistes reticulatus) courting a dead and bloated female and making repeated and vigorous attempts to insert the gonopodium into the female’s genital opening. On several occasions he came across toads (Bufo bufo) in amplexus, in which the male was clasping the dead body of a female. Male mammals are known to mate occasionally with dead individuals. In humans such a behaviour is termed necrophilia and punishable in most countries as an unacceptable sexual deviation. Copulations between a male insect and a dead male or female may have been observed before, there does not seem to be any published record of such an unusual behaviour, which is why we feel our observation is worth being made public
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