Why female mantis eats male

Bogomol received his name for the ability to make a prayer posture with folded "on the chest" front legs. Another French scientist of the XIX century Jean-Henri Fabr in the book "Moral insects" described the mantis so: "There is nothing in his opening that I would have condescension. But what cruel temper hides such a sore idle. This is a tiger of herbal jungle, a thunderstorm of peaceful highs. Logging the tenacious paws in the preliminary Moluba, he waits for another sacrifice. ".

What a mantoly looks like?

There are about 2,000 species of the Bogomol in the world. Insect is found in Russia, in Africa, Europe, the Steppes and Deserts of Asia, in Australia and the United States.

On average, the insect size ranges from 10 to 13 cm, but there are also dwarfs whose length is about 1 cm, and the giants growing up to 17 cm. The female of the mantis is always larger than the male.

Depending on the habitat, the insect color varies from green, yellow to the brown-gray or even dark brown, which allows it to be easily merged with plants and earth, waiting for prey. Large eyes and flexible neck. Mantis incredibly voracious. Most often, it is eating other insects, but large species also attack on small birds, frogs, lizards, and the female of the mantis eats the male. Not always. But during the copulation period.

Why female mantis eats male?

Usually the mating of the Bogomols occurs in August-September. Saying the "lady of the heart", the male mantis sneaks to her so carefully as possible. Hurry can cost him a life, and therefore the courtroom often lasts five to six hours. However, even successful mating does not guarantee security. Scientists from the University of New York in Fredonia and the University of Australian University of McKori found out why the female of the mantis bite off his head. They fed male individuals with crickets with tracking radioactive amino acids, and then traced their way. It turned out that females who ate their partners lay more eggs.

Thus, as explained by Professor of the Department of Biology, Belong Alexander Naznika, the head of the male goes to the development of eggs. Simply put, to continue the kind. It happens that the male sacrifices his life in advance. In 2017, scientists from the Deep Look project removed the mating, in which the female of the Mantis bite the head of the male before the start of the process, which, however, does not prevent partners to finish the started.

Catherine Berry, an evolutionary biologist from McKoryori University, and colleagues proved that the males of the mantomol not only do not try to avoid the "execution", but also compete for hungry females, as those produce more pheromones. By entering potential partners, the "fatal ladies" are saturated and increase their chances of the birth of healthy offspring. Such conclusions were published in Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in 2015.

Despite the widespread opinion that the copulation is the male of the mantis of life, it does not always happen. Approximately half of the cases of male individuals stay alive and after a while mantis mantows fall again. There already the execution is not terrible. Anyway until the end of October die adult individuals of both sexes.

Mantis – not the only perverts in the world of animals. The males of sea beavers or kalanov are not only applied during the sex acts of injury to females, but sometimes they mate with young seals or cormorants. And Darwinian spiders – still those jealous. So that the sperm of the stranger does not fertilize the female, the male can tear his leg and shove her partner in the genital path.

Previously, "My Planet" wrote about other cases where sexual intercourse only once, and told about unusual sexy rituals of animals.