Table 1.

Characteristics of the prey used in the experiments. Males and females of first and third instars were physiologically uniform, as they do not develop eggs and other sex-specific differences until the adult stage. Sex ratios of first and third instar B. germanica were approximately 1 : 1. Adult males were used because they are more physiologically uniform than adult females. Vertical scale bars to the right of each image are 5 mm. Photographs by Heather Frantz.

size class	small	medium	large	extra large
species	B. germanica	B. germanica	B. germanica	P. americana
developmental stage	first instar larvae	third instar larvae	adult	adult
sex	male and female	male and female	male	male
body length (mm, mean ± 1 s.e.)	2.3 ± 0.1	4.2 ± 0.1	12.5 ± 0.2	30.7 ± 0.4
Wet body weight (mg, mean ± 1 s.e.)	0.9 ± 0.1	4.3 ± 0.3	53.6 ± 0.9	784.6 ± 14.4
size class comparisons	small versus medium	medium versus large	small versus large	large versus extra-large
fractional change in length	0.79	2.0	4.3	1.5
fractional change in wet body weight	3.6	11	57	14