In the Ecuadorian cloud forest, males of the parasitoid braconid wasp Napo townsendi Shaw displayed facultative lekking, appearing both singly and in groups of 2–7 on the leaf tops of various plant species. To attract females, they constantly employed a stereotypical, spread-winged calling behaviour, apparently releasing a sex pheromone combed from the lateral metasomal exocrine glands and applied to the wings and hind legs. Aggregated males used the same posture in conspecific agonistic displays, often leading to physical fighting. While female wasps were attracted to and mated with displaying singletons, they also made a choice among aggregated males. When females approached, males vibrated their wings in a brief courtship and mounted. Details of copulation behaviour, which lasted on an average of 3–4 min, are described. Without apparent physical weaponry, the displaying wasps successfully warded off attacks from an assortment of predatory arthropods, particularly salticid spiders. We present case studies of repeated unsuccessful predation attempts by salticids. Here, we postulate that calling and release of sex pheromone may double as both an intrasexual agonistic display and an aposematic advisory to predators that the wasps employ a chemical defence.

The purse seine fishery in the Western Indian Ocean is dominated by Spanish and French vessels that rely heavily on the use of drifting fish aggregation devices (DFADs) to capture tropical tuna species (skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye tuna). This study uses local ecological knowledge (LEK) obtained through standardized interviews of fishing masters to compare and characterize the body of local ecological knowledge, fishing technology and fishing strategies of both fleets, with the goal of obtaining useful information for the management of the fishery. A notable difference between fleets was the number of DFADs actively monitored per vessel at any given time, which was much higher for Spanish vessels (ca. 60 versus 20 DFADs). Spanish vessels also achieved higher vessel CPUE (catch per DFAD set) than their French counterparts. The use of supply vessels to manage, monitor and protect productive DFADs, and the latest satellite-based technology to track and remotely monitor DFAD aggregations is restricted to the Spanish fleet. The French do not use supply vessels and deploy less sophisticated tracking buoys. These technological disparities resulted in some fishing strategy differences between both fleets, but few differences were found in the knowledge of tuna behavior accumulated by the fishers.

We studied the distribution of wild Mediterranean fruit flies, Ceratias capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae) in different environments of trimedlure-baited Jackson traps during high fall season populations in Southern Egypt. We found that 98% of females attracted to within aim radius of standard trimedlure (TML)-baited Jackson traps remained on the surrounding foliage without approaching the trap. Also about 30 % of males aggregated there, calling and competing for matings with approaching females. The closest mating occurred 25 cm from a standard trap. The nearest lek formation away from a trap was observed at a distance of 2 m on the same trap tree. The highest captures of males were recorded in the morning after male calling on the foliage reached its daily peak. Jackson traps baited with both protein hydrolyzate and TML on cotton wicks caught as many males, but significantly more females than traps with TML only.

We studied the behaviour of three Anastrepha spp. (Diptera: Tephritidae) that were attracted to protein hydrolysate in glass McPhail traps, hung on an 8 m tall wild mango tree, Mangifera indica at three different heights. Out of 665 flies that landed on the exterior of the trap only 31 % were caught. Females represented 60.2 % of all flies trapped. The intermediate trap hung at 5m caught the most flies (57.5%). We observed a great deal of feeding activity (on trap, leaves, branches and fruit) including régurgitation and reingestion of liquid food droplets. When not on the trap surface, flies were more commonly seen on leaves than on branches and fruits. Inter- and intraspecific encounters between all Anastrepha spp. and both sexes were commonly recorded. Males were observed calling alone or in leks. All leks were formed on leaves and on two occasions included individuals of two species. Our observations suggested that the McPhail traps attracted different Anastrepha spp. with varying degrees of intensity.