ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to permit students to observe, describe, and analyze a complex courtship and mating behavioral sequence and to test predictions concerning paternity assurance mechanisms and reversal of roles in courtship when males make a significant contribution to reproduction. Male giant water bugs in the subfamily Belostomatinae invest time and energy brooding eggs attached to their backs by conspecific females. Natural selection theory predicts that a male should care only for young that possess his genes. The water bugs that brood eggs are threatened, and should be expected to possess refined anti-cuckoldry or paternity assurance adaptations. One evolutionary prediction that arises out of the brooding behavior of male water bugs concerns the alteration of roles in courtship. Theory forecasts that whichever sex contributes most to reproduction becomes a limited resource, and should be courted by the other sex.
