Editing Mecoptera (section)

===Mating behaviour===
[[File:Panorpa communis copula.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Panorpa communis]]'' mating]]

Various courtship behaviours have been observed among mecopterans, with males often emitting [[pheromone]]s to attract mates. The male may provide an edible gift such as a dead insect or a brown salivary secretion to the female. Some boreids have hook-like wings which the male uses to pick up and place the female on his back while copulating. Male panorpids vibrate their wings or even [[stridulate]] while approaching a female.<ref name=Dunford/>

[[File:Bittacidae_fg1.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Bittacidae|Hangingflies]] have distinct mating behaviour.]]

Hangingflies (Bittacidae) provide a nuptial meal in the form of a captured insect prey, such as a caterpillar, bug, or fly. The male attracts a female with a pheromone from vesicles on his abdomen; he retracts these once a female is nearby, and presents her with the prey. While she evaluates the gift, he locates her genitalia with his. If she stays to eat the prey, his genitalia attach to hers, and the female lowers herself into an upside-down hanging position, and eats the prey while mating. Larger prey result in longer mating times. In ''Hylobittacus apicalis'', prey  {{convert|3|to|14|mm|in}} long give between 1 and 17 minutes of mating. Larger males of that species give prey as big as houseflies, earning up to 29 minutes of mating, maximal sperm transfer, more oviposition, and a refractory period during which the female does not mate with other males: all of these increase the number of offspring the male is likely to have.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Gullan, P. J. |author2=Cranston, P. S. |date=2010 |title=The Insects: An Outline of Entomology |publisher=Wiley |edition=4th |isbn=978-1-118-84615-5 |page=129}}</ref>