96 SOLIFUGAE 



They probably stand him in good stead at mating time when the 

 female is alleged to kill and devour her less powerful mate if she 

 can ! The jaws of the male are less bulky than those of the female 

 which are used to dig burrows in which the eggs are laid. They are 

 less strongly toothed and bear on their upper side a peculiar whip- 

 like structure of unknown function known as the flagellum. 



Mating takes place at dusk or during the night: it is rapid and 

 brutal. According to Heymons (1902) who observed it in Galeodes 

 caspiiis during a journey across the steppes of Turkestan, the male 

 courts his mate by stroking her, thus reducing her to a state of 

 lethargy. He then seizes her with his chelicerae, pedipalps and 

 legs, usually without harming her, carries her for some little dis- 

 tance and lays her on her side. After massaging her ventral surface 

 for some time with his jaws, he opens her genital orifice whose 

 edges have become swollen from these attentions, lifts his abdomen 

 and emits a mass of spermatozoa which falls to the ground. Gather- 

 ing this with his chelicerae, he forces it into the vagina of the fe- 

 male, closes the sides and holds them shut for a while. Then he 

 bounds off and flees before she can catch him. A male can effect 

 several copulations in succession but after the first the spermatic 

 mass is comparatively small and he dies shortly afterwards. 



These actions are purely reflex, because if the animals are separa- 

 ted during copulation the male will continue his massaging move- 

 ments against the hand of the observer, just as though the female 

 were still there. Although the total act may last for several minutes, 

 certain details are extremely rapid and it is difficult to see exactly 

 what is occurring; for example, it is not quite clear how the mass 

 of spermatozoa is gathered up and introduced into the genital 

 orifice of the female. 



Reproduction and life cycle 



After fertilisation the female develops an enormous appetite for 

 two or three weeks. There follows a period of intense tunnelling 

 operations during which a deep burrow is constructed, mostly at 

 night. In Solpiiga caff r a egg-laying lasts for some 3^-4i hours 

 (Lawrence, 1949), some 200 eggs being produced. In the smaller 

 S. hostilis the number is under 100. During labour the female lies 

 on her side rather listlessly while the eggs slip from her at regular 



