A new species, Nalassus (Helopocerodes) olgae sp. n., is described from Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East. A new combination is established: Nalassus (Helopocerodes) magyari (Kaszab, 1968), comb. n. The new species is similar to N. magyari but differs in the sculpture of the metaventrite, larger body and widely flattened lateral sides of the pronotum.

A new species, Hedyphanes chikatunovi sp. n., is described from southern Israel (Negev, Gerofit) and Egypt (Northern Sinai). These localities represent the southwestern limit of the distribution of the genus. The new species is placed in a new monotypic subgenus, Microhedyphanes subgen. n.

Artificial selection for fast development is successful in long-established laboratory populations of Tribolium, but not in strains recently derived from natural populations. It is shown that selection against fast development in dense, synchronized cultures operates through cannibalism of early pupae by larvae. Since standard husbandry procedures for laboratory strains involve the periodic cre...

Diverse animal groups exhibit homosexual interactions, yet the evolutionary maintenance of such behaviours remains enigmatic as they do not directly increase reproductive success by generating progeny. Here, we use Tribolium castaneum flour beetles, which exhibit frequent male homosexual copulations, to empirically test several hypotheses for the maintenance of such behaviours: (1) establishing...

Whether females gain indirect genetic benefits through mate choice is a controversial issue since this requires additive genetic variance in the preferred male traits. Condition dependence could maintain the necessary genetic variance by linking the expression of male traits to the supposedly large number of genes affecting condition. Copulating males of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum...