Courtship and mating

Abstract

Courtship consists of special forms of behaviour performed by male and female as preliminaries to mating and has the function of ensuring that the latter results in fertilisation or successful establishment of pregnancy in the female. Exactly how courtship achieves this end varies from group to group. In many invertebrates and probably lower vertebrates also, one of its roles is related to recognition of the species of the partner. In such cases courtship is a reciprocal affair and comprises a series of actions which release appropriate responses in the partner. If the latter is not a conspecific of opposite sex, then failure to give the correct response will terminate the exchange and so prevent the occurrence of a biologically useless mating. The responses of the female are normally linked with her physiological condition, so that if courted when she is not capable of a fertile mating she is unresponsive, and again a useless mating is avoided. The courtship of the hymenopteran Mormoniella, described by Barrass (1959, 1961), functions in this way to ensure that the male copulates only with a receptive female of his own species.