After a single mating, females lay up to 100,000 eggs in a den and die soon after the eggs have hatched.

For example, those regions could be the product of a single mating that was then selected for because they improved fitness.

But scores of these might disappear in our offspring with a single random mating.

A rhinoceros beetle like yours will drop dead after a single mating.

It is probably for this reason that male zebra finches copulate frequently with their partners, even though a single mating is quite sufficient to fertilise all the eggs.

Because ovulation is not always triggered by a single mating, females may not be impregnated by the first male with which they mate.

In these circumstances, selection may favor extreme mechanisms of paternity protection that amount to a maximal investment in a single mating.

"In a single mating," Mr. Gonzalez said, "he could be passing 30 percent of what he has stored."

Consequently, if the genes for wing pattern and color were normal functioning genes, a single mating would produce several phenyotypically different offspring, making the ability for mimicry to evolve very difficult.