CONTROL OF REPRODUCTION IN FEMALE 
COCKROACHES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 
NAUPHOETA C IN ERE A. 
II. GESTATION AND POSTPARTURITION. 
By Louis M. Roth 
Pioneering Research Division 
U. S. Army Natick Laboratories, Natick, Massachusetts 
In Part I (Roth, 1964) of this paper I presented the results of 
a study on the reproductive behavior during the first preoviposit ion 
period of 4 species of cockroaches that incubate their eggs internally. 
Nauphoeta cinerea (Olivier) was the principal species used, but some 
experiments were conducted on Leucophaea maderae (Fabricius), 
Pycnoscelus surinamensis (Linnaeus), and Diploptera punctata 
(Eschscholtz). 
In both N . cinerea and L. maderae receptivity can be correlated 
with the beginning of yolk deposition in the oocytes. Yolk deposition 
in cockroaches is dependent upon corpus allatum hormone (Scharrer, 
1946; Engelmann, 1957a, 1959; Roth and Stay, 1961, 1962b). 
Since allatectomized females mate (Roth and Barth, 1964), recep- 
tivity is determined by some event, presumably in the brain, which 
occurs at about the same time as onset of activity of the corpora 
allata; it was suggested that the neurosecretory system is involved 
in acceptance of the male by the female. 
Females of N. cinerea become sexually receptive and mate at an 
average age of 4 days; females that are starved from emergence mate 
at the same age as fed individuals. Females of L. maderae also 
undergo a precopulatory period before they become receptive, and 
mate at an average age of 9 days. In this species more than 50% 
of the females that are starved from emergence do not mate (Roth, 
1964). Thus, in virgin females starvation affects receptivity in 
L. maderae but not in N. cinerea (Roth, 1964). 
Once a virgin N. cinerea mates, she becomes unreceptive and will 
not mate again during the first preoviposition period. Mechanical 
stimulation caused by the firm insertion of the spermatophore in the 
bursa copulatrix inhibits the female’s sexual feeding response on the 
male’s tergum (Roth, 1962, 1964). Whereas insertion of the sper- 
matophore renders the female unreceptive it increases the activity of 
the corpora allata resulting in rapid development of the oocytes. 
There appears to be a synergistic action of nutrition and mating 
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