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Psyche 
[Vol. 94 
COPULATIONS, at 2-3 DAY INTERVALS 
Figure 4. Total fertile egg production by the successive mates of two males of C. 
plorabunda, mated every 2 days (CMlxx) or every 2-3 days (86CM1). Young 
females were made available to 86CM1 after his 18th copulation. 
earlier, species of Meleoma often have specialized dietary or pho- 
toperiod requirements that can complicate any measurements of 
fecundity. Actually, the number of eggs produced by females 
employed in our study was undoubtedly higher, because we cannot 
assess the number laid in the field prior to capture. 
Female Polyandry. 
It has long been known that female lacewings will mate more than 
once. Smith (1922) observed this in C. oculata, and second matings 
have been tabulated for European C. perla (L.) by Philippe (1971) 
and C. plorabunda by Jones et al. (1977), among others. The present 
study documents for C. plorabunda and C. downesi just how often a 
female will re-mate. Unlike many other insects — such as damselflies 
(Waage, 1983), scorpionflies (Thornhill, 1980), and crickets (Loher 
and Renee, 1978) — these green lacewings lose sexual receptivity 
after mating, and must nearly exhaust their stored supply of sperm 
before copulating again. Alternatively, it may be that stored sperm 
dies or is discarded by the female, or in some other way becomes 
unavailable to her; but the simplest explanation of our results is that 
