ing perch (and away from other males 
that will fight for possession of a mate) 
to the relative tranquillity of a nearby 
resting spot where copulation com- 
mences. 
Mating patterns of this sort are com- 
mon among insects, with females calling 
males to them and accepting the first 
male of their species to reach them. But 
what occurs in the thynnine wasps is 
unique among the Hymenoptera (the 
wasps, bees, and ants) and unusual 
among insects generally. Male thynnine 
wasps often provide their mates with 
food, offering nuptial gifts analogous to 
the prey presents given by male hanging 
flies to females. Unlike hanging flies, 
these wasps are not predatory but in- 
stead feed on the nectar of flowers or the 
sugary excreta of plant-feeding bugs. 
Hence their nuptial feeding behavior is 
somewhat different from that of the 
hanging flies. 
In some thynnine species males 
merely transport their mates to a source 
of food; while the male walks forward 
drinking nectar, the female, linked in 
copulation, trails behind, also feeding. 
But in other species, the male’s role in 
feeding his mate is more pronounced. A 
common pattern is for the male to carry 
the female, which usually assumes a 
coiled position at the tip of the male’s 
abdomen (the better to be carried in 
flight), to a source of nectar. There, the 
female remains coiled in a ball, head 
tucked under the male’s abdomen, while 
the male moves energetically from 
flower to flower or sugar droplet to 
sugar droplet, collecting liquid food and 
storing it in his crop. At intervals of 
several minutes, the male stops foraging 
and in some way signals to the female; 
she extends her body and he regurgi- 
tates a droplet of fluid to offer to her. 
Just as species differ in the coiled 
carrying position adopted by the female, 
there are also consistent species-specific 
patterns of food exchange among thyn- 
nines. In some, the male holds the drop- 
let of food in his mouth and the female 
stretches forward and consumes it. In 
others, the male deposits a droplet of 
food on a leaf or branch and the female 
uncoils, drinks the fluid from the leaf, 
and then resumes the carrying position. 
The male laps up any liquid left behind. 
There are thynnines in which the 
male does not offer the female many 
small regurgitated meals, but instead 
feeds himself extensively prior to 
searching for a mate and then offers the 
female a single large meal during copu- 
39 
