Description du comportement sexuel de Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae) par une technique d'analyse de...

Description of the sexual behaviour of Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae) with a lexical analysis software package. The sexual behaviour of Calliphora vomitoria was described using a lexical analysis software package considering courtship as a series of words, without any arbitrary categorization. Normal as well as manipulated partners of both sexes were presented to the males. Results showed that normal courtship and copulation occurred when the wings were modified but present and correctly oriented, whereas perturbations were observed and copulation disappeared after inversion and various head modifications. Missing elements (head and wings) were less disruptive than their inversion. If the partner was supposed to be scanned from the head to the abdomen via the wings and if it was supposed to perceive the relative position of these different parts, it is obvious that the absence of an element did not act as an error message and courtship and copulation were preserved. On the other hand, inversion of the same elements seemed to induce wrong or inconsistent informations affecting courtship structure, probably because of sequence disturbance. The courtship preservation in front of every kind of manipulation leads us to question what image of the sexual partner is constructed.