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Female Ulidiid flies have a kinky wont : After mating with a male , they expel his sperm and deplete it .
The odd behaviour may help these lady fly choose which guy cable fly sheet will father their vernal , investigator report online today ( April 11 ) in the daybook Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology .
Expelling and eating sperm may be the female fly’s way of choosing the father of her babies.
Studying a species of " picture - wing tent flap , " known asEuxesta bilimeki , researchers find that 100 percent of the 74 fly sheet couples they studied sick out ejaculate after mating . Further study break that 25 percent of females harbored nospermafterward . The findings hint the fly dames were able to check how much sperm to expel in ordination to select which male person fertilized their eggs .
And thesefly gal are no romantic — long periods of courting before mating made females more likely to expel all the cum , resultant show . The investigator suggest that the female may simply be generate in to a determined male person in decree to stave in off next advances , but dispensing with his sperm before he can father her babies .
Another hypothesis is that the sperm providesnutrition for the female flieswhen food for thought is scarce . To quiz this hypothesis , the researchers fed female flies a dieting of : protein , scratch and urine ; sugar and water ; just water ; or nothing ( fasting flies ) . Then they put the fly with Male that could ejaculate or male that could not .
Flies that were fed nutrients ( scratch or protein ) or patent water system seemed to derive no benefit from eating the sperm . But the fasting flies that ate spermatozoan lived longer than those that were prevented from eating it , hint the ejaculate provided a needed beginning of fluid . These fly ball dwell in juiceless regions where evolution may have privilege such behavior .
But studies bring out that females of many dirt ball species receive no nutritional benefit from such " bridal gift , " the researchers say . The sperm cell - run through practice may just be part of the mating effort .
Many interrogation remain , and the research worker remark that more experimentation are ask before have conclusive argument about the function of the spermatozoon - spewing - and - scarf behaviour .
