Female mantis eats male mantis after mating: Why doesn't the male mantis run? In fact, Black Widow can't escape.

Reproduction is the instinct of all species, so in order to reproduce, species in nature have evolved countless dazzling functions, with only one purpose, to leave as many offspring as possible!

Dance of the Mantis

But the reproduction of mantises is at risk of life, because after mating with the male mantis, the female mantis may turn around and bite the male mantis directly and eat it directly, just like eating sugar cane. Pimple, why does the female mantis eat the male mantis? Don't you need to raise cubs together?

Why do female mantises eat male mantises?

We all know that praying mantises are a kind of beneficial insects, and their presence captures a large number of harmful insects. There are more than 2,400 species of mantises in the world, but it is somewhat surprising that both mantises and cockroaches are members of the order Reticoptera.

The mantis has a strong ability to adapt to the environment and is distributed from the temperate to the tropics. This depends on the unique natural conditions of the mantis. First of all, the mantis has a triangular and rotatable head, with two huge compound eyes on both sides, which allows the mantis to have 360-degree vision without blind spots, all threats are in sight!

The other is that the mantis has the same catching feet, and the "standby" state is contracted, the front of the whole body is raised, and the "blade" is folded, just like praying, so many countries in Europe call it "prayer bug". , but this state is very beneficial to hunting, "stand high, catch far", and the catching feet are also very long, so catching prey is easy to catch!

There are also insects such as mantises that can fly. There are two pairs of wings in mantises. The forewings are born on the mesothorax and the hindwings are born on the metathorax. The forewings mainly provide camouflage. Praying mantises aren't very good at flying, and they can't travel as long as locusts, but hunting aids are more than enough.

Why do female mantises with such an advantage still eat male mantises?

It stands to reason that the female mantis hunter does not need to eat the male mantis at all, and this is her "husband", how can she do it? Maybe we can explore why female mantises eat male mantises from several angles:

1. Female praying mantises need a lot of nutrients to lay eggs and make egg sheaths

If you exercise more outdoors, you must have seen some gray-brown unknown objects like foam on some tree trunks, branches or grass stems. If you squeeze it with your hands, it is still elastic, and if you cut it, it looks like foam. Multi-empty structure.

This is the egg sac of the praying mantis, also known as the octopus, you can't imagine a mantis making such a huge octopus, even if it is foamy it needs a lot of material, so the male praying mantis is only part of one.

2. The hunting instinct of female praying mantises

The praying mantis is a loner insect, its "intelligence" cannot understand the meaning of a partner, and after mating is completed, it turns around and finds a big prey coming to the door, and immediately "a big knife", so the male praying mantis is for love. Dedicated!

Another key point is that compared with the female mantis, the male mantis is obviously smaller in size. In this case, the male mantis is obviously not an opponent, so it is a bit unfair to die!

3. For smooth mating

It is said that the behavior of male mantises is controlled by the nerve center during mating, the fertilization rate decreases, and the probability is greatly increased after the head is bitten off, so there is this statement.

However, entomologists have already done experiments. This behavior seldom occurs when a fed female mantis mates, and there is about a 30% probability of being eaten when a hungry female mantis mates. Therefore, the female mantis eats the male. The mantis mainly depends on whether he is hungry, and the other is the hunting instinct of the mantis.

Why do male mantises risk their lives to mate and why not run?

It's not that the male mantis doesn't want to run, but he doesn't know the danger at all. It is instinct to reproduce, and it is also instinct to escape, but the male mantis was beheaded without any precautions, and he was still in the state of intercourse at the time, so he couldn't even try to run!

The behavior of females eating males during mating in nature

The behavior of females eating males in nature is not only mantises, but also black widow spiders (Australian redback spiders). The male spider has turned into a cloud of juice!

The female spider will drain the male spider with her mouthparts like a can of Coke, and the male spider simply cannot escape! If you knew that you would face such a fate, would you still go to mate without hesitation?

Further reading: Praying mantises don’t need to raise young

Insects like praying mantis cannot survive the winter, but their egg sheaths can. In the next spring, these egg sheaths will drill out the larvae of mantises. After hatching, there are small holes in the egg sheaths. This is the larvae drill. Traces out!

And the larvae of mantis, like most other insects, do not need to be raised. And when the mantis larvae hatch, their parents have already become "products" eliminated from the previous season, and these "children" will never see their parents!