1968] 
Barth — Behavior of Gro?nphadorhina 
129 
Dumortier (1965) reports briefly on the mating behavior of G. 
brunneri which from his description appears to be very similar to 
that of G. portentosa, and includes in sequence such elements as 
antennal contact, antennal fencing and mutual body stroking with 
the antennae, male circling the female with hissing (the individual 
hisses being both softer and shorter than those associated with ter- 
ritorial defense), and finally assumption of the opposed position by 
the male backing directly into the female. 
The mating behavior of species of this genus represents a marked 
departure from the typical pattern of cockroach mating behavior 
as described by Barth (1961, 1964, 1968a). Variation in the male’s 
preliminary courtship activities and in the form of the male’s wing 
raising display (present in all winged species studied with the ex- 
ception of Pycnoscelus indicus and two species of the genus Panchlora 
— Barth, 1968a) is frequently encountered in various phylogenetic 
lines of the Blattaria, but the absence of the female’s mounting and 
feeding response is quite unusual and has been observed to occur in 
only three subfamilies of the Panchloroid complex of the family 
Blaberidae (classification according to McKittrick, 1964), the 
Pycnoscelinae (Pycnoscelus) } the Panchlorinae (Panchlora) , and the 
Oxyhaloinae (Gromphadorhina) . In Pycnoscelus indicus , there is 
a reversal of the typical pattern in that the male mounts the female 
with very little preliminary courship (Roth and Barth, 1967). 
Panchlora nivea and P. irrorata resemble Gromphadorhina in that 
the male after a much reduced preliminary courtship achieves genital 
connection merely by backing into the abdominal tip of the female 
(Roth and Willis, 1958; Willis, 1966). Within the Oxyhaloinae, 
mating behavior follows the typical cockroach pattern quite closely 
in Leucophaea maderae and Nauphoeta cinerea, the only other spe- 
cies which have been studied (Roth and Barth, 1967). Similarly 
within the Panchlorinae, the only other species for which informa- 
tion is available, Capucina patula, shows a fairly typical mating be- 
havior pattern with a male wing-raising display, a female mounting 
and feeding response, etc. (Barth, unpublished observations). On 
the basis of present evidence these two subfamilies, the Oxyhaloinae 
and the Panchlorinae, appear to be the most interesting for study 
of the evolution of aberrant mating behavior patterns in the Blat- 
taria. Investigation of additional species might reveal intermediate 
stages and perhaps permit some conclusion as to whether we are 
really dealing with the parallel evolutionary development of similar 
aberrant mating behavior patterns in related phylogenetic lines as 
currently seems to be the case. 
