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One of the the most popular bits of scientific misinformation in circulation is the notion that the female praying mantis always cannibalizes the head of her mate post-coitus. This claim is not without any merit, as female praying mantids often decapitate and ingest the heads of their mates after copulation, phenomenon biologists refer to as sexual cannibalism: Praying mantids are perhaps the most famous example of sexual cannibalism, which is common in insects, spiders, and other arthropods. The assertion that their copulations necessitate this action, however, is false, as the bulk of mantid copulations do not end in decapitation. The prevalence of this phenomenon was discussed in a 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Myriad explanations have been offered for the behavior’s occurrence, but many entomologists generally link the practice to be a trade-off between resource scarcity and procreation (though plenty of other explanations have been advanced as well): In other words, the benefit to a female may stem from the nutritional support provided by the male, assuming the deadly deed occurs after ejaculation. The male, in turn, would have the benefit of ensuring nutritional support for the mother and his genetic progeny in exchange for his head (and life). This mechanism was tested in a 1994 laboratory experiment in which males were introduced to either starved or well fed female mantids, and cannibalism was observed to occur only when males were exposed to the underfed females: While evolutionary biologists continue to investigate and debate this unsettling behavior, there is a growing consensus that its occurrence in nature may have multiple potentially unrelated causes. Regardless of cause, however, the evidence is clear: male mantids can and often do successfully copulate without having their heads ingested, and therefore the claim that it is a biologically necessary aspect of praying mantid mating is demonstrably false.
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