In Do women retain traces of her male partner after giving birth?
Cecil says “As you’d know if you’d been paying attention in high school biology, pregnant females–whether human, female, or wombat–retain no male residue once they expel the placenta after giving birth.”
True for the mammal kingdom, no doubt. But in at least some (most?) species of butterfly, the female keeps the sperm inside of her after copulation and uses it to lay eggs at her leisure. It’s like this with ants, too, if I’m not mistaken. One big bang at the beginning and then the male is useless… the queen just keeps laying. Maybe she has the option for further mating if she feels like it. Some butterflies do. In fact, it’s a common strategy for females to make it with the first guy she can find after emerging from pupal state. This way she can get to egg laying as fast as she can. But if she finds a better insect… one that flies higher and stronger, she may opt to mate again. At least with the Colias butterflies I worked in during college, the second male’s sperm supercedes the first’s. There’s a little period in which the plumbing is flushed before the new sperm is put into place. Researchers found that if you forcibly induced the female to lay eggs at this intermediary time (by tickling her butt on her host plant of choice) she lays sterile eggs. Thereafter, it’s all the second guy’s progeny.
So if the lady was upset about her thoroughbred butterfly being tainted instead of her thoroughbred dog…she’d still be wrong. Even though the butterfly would retain the sperm, a new mating would superceed the old.
This whole deal introduces a couple of interesting quirks to butterfly’s sexuality. Males have evolved a few strategies. First, they emerge earlier, so they can be around as soon as the ladies come out. One species doesn’t even wait: the males pierce the female pupa and fertilize them before their even done metamorphosizing. And on the plus side (from the female’s point of view) in at least some species the male’s sperm comes with a spermatophore… extra fat a nutrients which are a bonus and might induce further mating. On the other hand, in at least one species (pieris? no… I forget) the male actually places a cap on the female after they mate, to prevent her from doing the nasty with any other guy. Butterfly chastity belts.
