Monday, October 11, 2010

Woodlice Do It Diagonally

No really, they do, and it is all over in 15 minutes.
Mating occurs at night, and is therefore hard to see. The male climbs onto a receptive female, licks her head and drums on her back with his legs for about five minutes. He then shifts to a diagonal position on the females back and passes sperm to her left side genital opening from his right hand stylets. He then changes his position to the opposite diagonal and deposits sperm in her right hand genital opening from his left hand stylet. Sperm transfer takes about 5 minutes for each side.

I was wondering if I could find a pious excuse for blogging this but really it is just so interesting, who knew woodlice had it in them? In NZ they are called "slaters," which I guess isn't the craziest name for them.  We found a couple of big ones in the garden yesterday and now the girls have some new pets, hence the need for research on the subject! :-)

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