530 
Psyche 
[September-December 
Fig. 1. The overlapping home ranges of three males at the orchard 
study area. “Blue’s” home range is outlined with a dashed line; “red’s” 
home range is outlined with a dot-dashed line ; “white-dot’s” home range 
is outlined with a solid line. The circular stippled areas represent prominent 
Salsola bushes. One large flowering weed is shown schematically in the 
lower left hand corner of “blue’s” home range. 
sionally alighting and walking up stems apparently searching for 
prey, the tenebrionid beetle Metapoloba pruinosa (Alcock, 1974), 
which were sometimes seen in this plant. As she flew slowly past a 
perched male he flew up and cruised behind her. The female alighted 
and the male quickly dropped onto her back facing in the same direc- 
tion as his potential mate. While stroking her antennae with his the 
male held the female’s wings out at right angles to her body by sand- 
wiching each wing between his fore- and midlegs, presumably making 
escape more difficult for the female. His hindlegs grasped the fe- 
male’s abdomen. After several minutes of unsuccessful attempts to 
copulate, the male released his partner and both flew away. The 
other two attempted matings also followed this general pattern. One 
took place in a Salsola plant, the other on a flower head of a weed. 
The related wasp C. frontata also mates at flowers, initially adopting 
the position used by C. simplex (pers. obs.) with the male dismount- 
ing after coupling is achieved (Scullen, 1965). 
