Why do mantis eat their mates

Sexual cannibalism among praying mantises is well documented, but scientists have debated the reasons for it. In praying mantises, around 25 percent of all sexual encounters result in the death of the male. To see if this is actually the case, the researchers embedded traceable radioactive amino acids into crickets, which were subsequently fed to a population of male mantises. Each of these males was then paired with a female.

Half of them were rescued from their two-faced lovers before cannibalism could take place, while the other half The researchers then set about the task of studying the reproductive success of each female involved. By following the flow of radioactive proteins through the bodies of the females, the scientists could track the contribution of the recently-devoured male.

Typically, the female is the aggressor, which encourages males to approach the female carefully and cautiously when mating. They wrestle and sometimes seriously injure the females in an attempt to mate and avoid being eaten. The two researchers studied 52 pairs of Miomantis caffra , commonly known as the springbok mantis, in the lab for 24 hours.

Over half of the praying mantis pairs had a fight within the first 12 hours. He and Holwell think that the males were trying to use force to encourage the females to mate.

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