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How to uncoil your partner—“mating songs” in giant pill-millipedes (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida)

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Abstract

The stridulation of the giant pill-millipede genus Sphaerotherium from South Africa, one of only three groups of millipedes that produce sounds, was studied. One hundred one stridulation series of a total of nine different species (Sphaerotherium dorsaloide, Sphaerotherium hanstroemi, Sphaerotherium mahaium, Sphaerotherium similare, Sphaerotherium punctulatum, Sphaerotherium convexitarsum, Sphaerotherium dorsale, Sphaerotherium rotundatum, and Sphaerotherium perbrincki) were analyzed. Stridulation sounds are produced only with a special field of ribs on the posterior surface of the posterior telopod, which is actively moved over a field of sclerotized nubs on the inner margin of the anal shield. The Sphaerotherium male usually stridulates only when in contact with a female to initiate mating. This seems to prevent the female from volvating into a ball or stimulate the female to uncoil when already rolled in. The sound analyzes revealed a broad frequency spectrum in all stridulation sounds produced, without obvious differences in frequency distribution among species. However, the temporal pattern of the stridulation varies greatly between species and seems to be species-specific, arguing for a species recognition function of the stridulation during courtship behavior. A single species (S. punctulatum) was found to stridulate during mating while three species also show postcopulatory stridulation. Apparently, pill-millipedes are not capable of acoustic perception, as no hearing organs are known, indicating that the communication is mainly based on perception of temporal vibration patterns, and not of the acoustic signal itself. The need to overcome the rolling-in reflex of the female is developed as a hypothesis why stridulation exists only in millipedes able to coil into a ball, and apparently evolved four times independently in the superorder Oniscomorpha.

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Acknowledgments

This work is dedicated to the late Ulrich Haacker (1939–1972), the pioneer of stridulation studies in millipedes, who collected the majority of the initial data on which this study is based. His efforts contributed significantly to the knowledge of millipedes. We thank Petra Sierwald (Field Museum, Chicago) for advice and support, Klaus Riede (Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig) for access to literature, and Betty Strack (Field Museum, Chicago) for the help in producing the SEM images. Holly Wesener edited the English of the article and Nadine Van den Noppen did the drawings of Fig. 3. We thank the four anonymous reviewers and the editorial team for improving the quality of the paper. The collecting of the specimen was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ha 547/4). A visit by the first author in Tervuren to discuss an earlier draft of this paper was funded by the European Union SYNTHESYS programme BE-Taf 1165 to TW. During the earlier stages of the development of the manuscript, the first author was funded by PEET (NSF grant DEB 97–12438 and 05–29715) to Petra Sierwald, William A. Shear, and Jason Bond.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Sektion Myriapoda, Adenauerallee 160, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Thomas Wesener

  2. Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Friedensplatz 1, 64283, Darmstadt, Germany

    Jörn Köhler

  3. Institut für Bienenkunde, Polytechnische Gesellschaft, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Karl-von-Frisch-Weg 2, 61440, Oberursel, Germany

    Stefan Fuchs

  4. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Invertebrate Section, 3080, Tervuren, Belgium

    Didier van den Spiegel

Authors
  1. Thomas Wesener
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  2. Jörn Köhler
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  3. Stefan Fuchs
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  4. Didier van den Spiegel
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Correspondence to Thomas Wesener.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Wesener, T., Köhler, J., Fuchs, S. et al. How to uncoil your partner—“mating songs” in giant pill-millipedes (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida). Naturwissenschaften 98, 967 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-011-0850-8

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