Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
The number of eggs produced by females of Anobium punctatum (Deg.) (Col., Anobiidae) was determined at Auckland, New Zealand, during annual emergence in December 1957. The females were collected before mating and egg-laying occurred. Each female was weighed and then confined, with males, to an egg-laying block of sapwood of Podocarpus dacrydioides. The average number of eggs per female was 54·8, far higher than obtained from field-collected females, and additionally the egg-laying distribution was neither skewed nor censored. Following a short preoviposition period, eggs were laid rapidly, egg-laying being virtually finished by the 15th day after emergence. Females lived a few days after egg-laying had ceased, maximum length of life being between 24 and 31 days.
For about 60 per cent, of females the number of eggs laid was closely related to the initial weight of the female, but the remaining females laid fewer eggs in relation to their weight.