This is very interesting, I have often wondered this myself.
Is it down to pheromones, seasonal changes, simple urges or even food intake levels or maybe all four.

What I noticed with panoptes panoptes was that 2 of my males would always want to mate with the females, this would calm down a little after a pair had been housed together for a while, the male would then lose interest.

Another male showed no interest when introduced to the same females, so if it was just pheromones then surely the female would be giving off the same to this male.

I had one male that would even try to copulate with decor, maybe he could sense a female nearby?


However I did also witness proven females trying to mate with other females and even males. My conclusions for this was that the female must get some sort of sexual stimulus from mating as we do ourselves. Interestingly this behaviour never occured when the same females had never come into contact with a male before, it only happened afterwards.


Sean

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