Two males, one female: triplet-style mating behaviour in the Darwin wasp Xorides ater (Gravenhorst, 1829) (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, Xoridinae) in the Swiss Alps

Abstract

The Darwin wasp Xorides ater is a solitary idiobiont ectoparasitoid of wood-boring beetle larvae. It occurs across the Palaearctic, and in Switzerland seems to be restricted to areas above 980 m altitude. Very little is known about its biology and behaviour. We here report three separate instances of a female X. ater mating simultaneously with two males, observed on the same occasion on a Picea abies woodpile near Lenk, Switzerland. Only two copulae that involved one male and one female were observed at the same time, which might indicate that this mating mode is rather common in X. ater. We illustrate our observations with photo and video material and compare it to mating behaviour known from other species of Darwin wasps.