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[Vol. 94 
Figure 3. Fertile egg production as a function of time for two females of Chryso- 
perla downesi, mated on day 1 (83-3) or collected from field (FLD1). Eggs were 
clipped on a 2, 2, and 3 day timetable each week. 
siblings C. plorabunda and C. downesi differ so much that their 
similar fecundities seem anomalous: the former species is multivol- 
tine, whereas the latter is univoltine. In any case, it seems clear that 
individual females of either C. plorabunda or C. downesi can fertil- 
ize about 80 percent of their lifetime supply of viable eggs with the 
sperm of a single male, although this may not happen very often in 
nature, for reasons to be discussed shortly. Principi (1949) obtained 
similar results for C. formosa Brauer, suggesting that a fertilization 
pattern like this may be widespread in Chrysopidae. Females in 
some other insect orders have also been shown to fertilize most of 
their eggs with the sperm of their first mate: Drosophila melano- 
gaster Meigen is a good example (Pyle and Gromko, 1978). 
The relatively low fecundity of Meleoma emuncta (Table 2) may 
not be typical of the species or genus, for Tauber (1969) counted 347 
fertile eggs from one female fed an artificial diet fortified with levu- 
lose and choline chloride. In that study, a specimen of M. dolichar- 
tha (Navas) produced 313 eggs from the same diet. As mentioned 
