The praying mantis courtship is a dangerous affair with the male praying mantis ends up being decapitated by the female after they mate. Sometimes, the female even eats other body parts of the males they mate with, according to National Geographic.
A 2016 study showed that female Chinese mantis eats their mates to acquire important amino acids that will also benefit their offsprings. It also appears that eating their mates make them lay more eggs than they normally would.
However, the frequency of male praying mantis getting eaten by their mates may be just overstated. For example, Springbok praying mantis has a trick ready for it not to be decapitated or eaten.
The Male Praying Mantis' Trick To Not Get Eaten
About 60% of Springbok praying mantis mating end in males being eaten. Entomologist Nathan Burke from the University of Auckland said that male praying mantis always plays Russian roulette wherever they encounter cannibalistic females when mating that is why they show extreme caution when approaching a prospective mate.
But they have a different trick that has never been observed in other species of praying mantis before to help them survive, according to ScienceAlert. The findings, published in Biology Letters, revealed that the males would try to subdue the females when they are under attack by pinning the females down in violent struggles.
According to Burke, males who win the lovers' tussle are far more likely to succeed in consummating the relationship. This means that the behavior is both a mating and surviving tactic. Based on gladiatorial experiments with 52 pairs of praying mantis, the key to winning it is by striking first.
There is a 78% chance for males to survive after mating if he gets to draw and grab the female with its serrated raptorial forelegs first before the female attacks. Plus, if they managed to injure the female's abdomen they could keep their head every time.
"I was very surprised to discover that males injure females while trying to subdue them for mating," said Burke. "Nothing like that has ever been observed in mantises before."
But if he is slower than the females, he would most likely end up losing his head and become his mate's snack.
Female Springbok Mantis' Trick
Sexual cannibalism is the phenomenon wherein the female of a species eats the males during or after mating. In spiders, the females are often called black widow. Some animals do their best just to not get eaten, like playing dead.
But for female Springboks mantis, they have another trick: asexual reproduction. The female Springboks can asexually reproduce without needing a mate.
However, this also begs the question: if female Springboks can reproduce and so good at sexual cannibalism then how are males supposed to survive?
Burke said that sexual conflict theory dictates that males in this kind of situation should evolve counter-measures to help them mate and stay relevant, and that is what researchers indeed found in their study.
"It's a fascinating example of how sexual conflict can lead to the evolution of mating tactics that help one sex but hinder the other," Burke said.
READ MORE: Scientists Discovered How Dinosaurs Mate By Reconstructing Its Cloacal Region
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