Mating for Life Part 3: Monogamy in Insects

We’ve seen in part 1 (birds) and part 2 (mammals) of this series that there is a lot of variation in monogamy in the animal kingdom. It is worth mentioning one more group of animals before we carry on.

• Do insects mate for life?

In the invertebrateworld, there is a countless variety of mating techniques, but even amidst this variety there are some examples of monogamy and mating for life. Termites (infraorder: Isoptera) are colonial animals where a single queen produces all the offspring that then grow up to service the collective. A termite queen constantly produces offspring, most of which become workers and soldiers that serve the colony, but each year, the queen will produce a generation of breeding individuals. These ‘breeders’, called alates, are males and females with wings that fly away from the home colony to found their own. Females breed and then…