Males of certain Australian beetles have been seen trying to copulate with every

Question

Males of certain Australian beetles have been seen trying to copulate with everything from beer bottles to large orange signs (Figure 12.6 in the textbook Animal Behaviour 10th edition by John Alcock). Apply ethological terminology to these cases by identifying the releaser, the fixed action pattern, and the innate releasing mechanism. Then develop an ultimate hypothesis to account for what clearly is maladaptive behaviour on the part of these obtuse beetles (which sometimes die rather than leave the inanimate and unresponsive copulatory partners that they have chosen).

Explanation / Answer

ANSWER:

The beetles here are acting in response to the change in color, which is a releaser of a type of courtship behavior since these males have an in built releasing mechanism in their brain which acts in response to a particular stimulus by identifying and detecting the stimulus.

A hypothesis that can be put forth to explain this sort of a behavior might be that the males in the past, during the adaptive period , would respond to the orange color of their partners, thus arousing a stimulus, which might have been carried forward in the present.
Since , in the far past there would have been no such situations where there would be orange telecommunication signs or beer bottles, the ability to distinguish between their mates and the materialistic objects might not have developed into some of the male Australian beetles.While on the other hand, there might also have been males, who would have learnt to distinguish between the above and thus, would have successfully copulated and raised male offsprings with a behavior that would be similar to their.

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