Males are very different in appearance and behavior from females. The males are tiny, winged creatures with eyes and legs. Mature males emerge from the armor in the late afternoon. They do not feed, and they live for only a few hours to mate. Because of the late emergence and short life of males, it is rare to find them in the field.
Parthenogenic races can reproduce without males, because parthenogenic races reproduce asexually.
Since female armored scales are not capable of wandering once they have settled and started feeding, long range dispersal happens by passive transport of infested plant material. Wind is an agent of dispersal and also one of mortality, since crawlers dislodged by wind may not land on suitable host plants. Adult males are capable of only weak flight or wind transport. Living only a few hours, they do not feed. The two developmental stages of males prior to the adult stage, prepupa and pupa, also do not feed.