Figure 1.
Mating posture (A) and male and female (para)genitalia (B–F) in Cimex hemipterus.
All pictures except for (A) are ventral views, shown in the direction as indicated in (C). (A) A male mounting a female. (B) Male intromittent organ (paramere) (indicated by the white arrowhead). (C) The paragenital sinus (indicated by the arrow) of an R-female. Cured scars on the exospermalege and in the next sternite are indicated by black and white arrowheads, respectively. (D) The paragenital sinuses (indicated by the arrows) of a D-female. Scars are indicated as in (C). (E) An R-female at 40 min after a normal copulation. Sperm in the mesospermalege (the white arrowhead) can be seen through the thin sternites. (F) An accidentally discovered R-female with an injected sperm mass outside the spermalege (indicated by the white arrow head). Unlike normally inseminated females, the sperm mass showed no sign of migration even 10 hours after discovery. (G) An example of females with the left-side abdomen sealed. See text for the details about the experiment. Scale bars, 100 µm in C–D, and 1 mm in E–G.
Figure 2.
(Para)genital systems and the distribution of cured scars on the abdomen of female Cimex hemipterus.
(A) A schematic drawing of the genital and paragenital systems. The migration routes of sperm are indicated by the arrows. The migration routes of sperm are indicated by the arrows. (B) Distribution of cured scars on the female abdominal exoskeletons outside the spermalege(s). The roman numerals (II-VIII) indicate the 2nd-8th abdominal sternites, respectively. Sites a, c, d, and f are on inter-segmental membranous regions, whereas b, e, and g are on hardly screlotized parts of the sternites. The numbers in the brackets indicate the number of females with scar patches on each site. Abbreviations: lsp, left mesospermalege; ov, ovary; rsp, right mesospermalege; sc, seminal conceptacle.
Figure 3.
Cross-sections of the mesospermalege and the artificially injected spermatozoa in female Cimex hemipterus.
(A–D) Cross-sections of the left-side mesospermalege of a D-female (A, B), and the right-side mesospermalege of a D-female (C) and an R-female (D). Sperm injected by AI are indicated by the arrow (A). The white arrowheads in B and C indicate a sperm mass evacuating the mesospermalege. (E) A sperm mass (indicated by the white arrowhead) evacuating the left mesospermalege of a D-female 5 hour after the AI treatments. (F) Spermatozoa (indicated by the white arrowheads) entering the sperm conseptacles of a D-female at 5 hour after the AI treatments. Abbreviations: sc, seminal conceptacle; sp, mesospermalege. All scale bars, 50 µm.
Figure 4.
Proportion of female Cimex hemipterus that laid fertile eggs in the sealing experiment.
The numbers above the columns indicate the sample sizes. A significant difference was detected between bars labeled with a and b (Fisher’s exact test, P<0.0001 after a sequential Bonferroni method), whereas bars labeled with the same letters were not significantly different (P>0.05).