The key to the survival of any species is the continuation of the genus. Praying mantises were no exception, the mating of which has a number of very unusual features. For the male, unfortunately, this process can end very tragically. Scientists could not understand for a long time why such cruelty in females of this species. However, over time, the answer was found.
So, want to know what she does after mating and why does she need it? Well, then it's time to go to the wonderful world of wild nature and see everything with your own eyes.
Mating season
With the arrival of August, hormones begin to play in praying mantises, which activates hidden mechanisms aimed at preparing for the reproduction process. In particular, insects begin to actively hunt in order to provide the body with the necessary elements and minerals. Females are especially sensitive to this task, because they will need to spend a lot of energy in order to lay eggs.
Closer to September, females, fully prepared for reproduction, inject special pheromones into the air, which only male praying mantises smell. Mating in these insects is a very unusual process with many amazing moments. So, carried away by the smell, males forget about everything in the world and go to meet their beloved.
How mantises conduct mating
The fun begins when two insects are within gaze distance. The male, who is inferior to the female in size, realizes that any oversight on his part can lead to a tragic ending.
So, if the female does not like the new gentleman, then she can whack him with her paw. And in the case of praying mantises, such a blow can not only greatly harm health, but also kill a would-be lover. That is why males first study the partner's reaction, being at a safe distance from her. Sometimes they even perform a small mating dance to show their attractiveness.
If the female does not show aggression, then the males begin the process itself. However, even after that, there is a chance that everything will end very sadly for the man.
Bloodthirsty female praying mantis
Many are familiar with the notoriety that surrounds the females of these insects. The point is that they can bite off their boyfriends' head after mating. Why is this happening and are all males expecting a similar fate?
In order to lay eggs, females need to stock up on plenty of protein. And if they did not manage to get it during a regular hunt, then the only way out is to bite off a piece from the gentleman. But if the lady is not hungry, then men have nothing to worry about: everything will end quite well.
But in any case, all praying mantises are familiar with the laws of nature. Mating is the only way to survive, which means that males will be forced to risk their lives for the greater good.
According to one version, the female praying mantis simply needs protein material, so she eats the male. In order for everything to work out for sure, she begins with the head, without the male he will no longer see where to run from the cruel spouse.)
According to another version, the praying mantis takes revenge for female grievances to the entire male race in the person of her male.
Because there are no brains and their whole existence is based on natural instincts. Fertilized and immediately gained by eating the male, the necessary nutrients for breeding offspring. By the way, not only praying mantises do this. And in some insects, the larvae eat the mother to grow. Ideas of nature!
A very sad fate of the male praying mantis
Having found a female for himself and indulging in love pleasures with her - the next moment the male loses his head
The male eats her and then the male
Why - apparently, after having sex with the male, the female becomes pregnant and she needs nutrients, in other words, food.
And under hand turns out to be a male - so she eats him, while receiving useful proteins and proteins.
Which will allow her to give birth to healthy offspring.
It is not strange and not scary at the same time, but it is so! After mating has taken place, the female eats the male's head (at least, I read about it somewhere somewhere), and then she eats all of it! She does this so that she can take excellent care of her children. She needs a good supply of protein. We cannot understand this!
In nature, everything has its own laws. The female praying mantis does eat the male after fertilization. One of the reasons, as scientists explain, is the lack of an instinct to preserve offspring in a male. That is, he does not feed a pregnant female, like a loving husband and caring father. Therefore, he goes as a sacrifice for the survival of his offspring. Tough, but fair.
This is an interesting natural phenomenon that scientists have not yet figured out for sure. The main version says that after mating, the female is fertilized, and more nutrients are needed for stable fruit ripening, so a male praying mantis is a suitable bag of poplar. So to speak, they will give their lives for the bright future of their offspring.
The female eats the male because of the strong need for proteins early in the development of the eggs.
In nature, before mating, the female bites off the male's head, since he cannot mate with the head (why? It is unknown), but more often the female eats the male after the perfect act. Eggs need protein to develop, which is why the wife eats her husband!
But that's not all.
After the female makes a nest of frothy mucus and lays her eggs there, she dies herself. She didn't survive her husband for long ... And so on in a circle. The sad fate of these insects, you can’t say anything.
The most famous case of sexual cannibalism is the eating of her male by a female praying mantis. Why the female needs this is not entirely clear, although two options are assumed - either, which is most likely, in this way the female replenishes the reserves of proteins that she needs to successfully lay eggs, or biting off the male's head stimulates a powerful release of semen from the still living body, which provides the necessary masonry productivity. Whatever it was, there is no chance of surviving male praying mantises, and therefore it is impossible to say what would happen if the male survived. Maybe he would have rushed to kill the female, maybe he would have begun to eat the laid eggs. Probably, after all, it is not in vain that the female praying mantis does this with her gentleman - it means there is something for that.
Two versions, at least, are put forward by connoisseurs of the animal world, why this lady eats her partner after mating games.
1st version - caring. Those. literally, taking care of the future offspring, the female obtains an additional supply for laying eggs and the male, the praying mantis, turns out to be the first on her seeking path.
2nd version - reproduction and better fertilization. Those. during its death, when the head is torn off, the body of the praying mantis releases a powerful clot of sperm, which allows the female praying mantis to receive a larger amount of material necessary for fertilization, it is on such a natural instinct that the deadly love of this insect is laid.
There is also a third option, but it is not about the death of male praying mantis, but about the preservation of life. They say that if the praying mantis guessed how the same spiders bring a fly to their friend for further replenishment of energy, they would remain alive. But I haven’t figured it out yet and only some of the males have time to jump away from the female at the moment when she is going to devour him ...
In nature, it is so arranged that after mating, the female mantis eats the male. Presumably, after mating, the female praying mantis became pregnant. In this way, it replenishes the lack of vitamins, or rather proteins, which she really needs at an early stage of egg development. It is so arranged that for a female praying mantis, her offspring are much more important than a male.
The most famous example of cannibalism in the animal kingdom is the habit of female praying mantis to bite off the head of their sexual partner immediately after mating. Violent sexual behavior, as the zoologists found out, is due to the fact that in this way the females not only provide their bodies with a related protein during pregnancy, but sometimes provoke the release of semen by decapitation.
The benefits for females of the order Mantodea are quite clear, as well as it is clear what is the reason for this behavior from the point of view of evolution. However, now scientists have decided to figure out how sexually mature males behave, and whether they are trying to somehow avoid the bitter fate, because sexual mating ends in death only in half of the cases.
Scientists even dubbed the hungry female praying mantis P. albofimbriata "femme fatale" (photo from Macquarie University).
Katherine Barry, an evolutionary biologist at Macquarie University in Australia, together with her colleagues conducted a study, the results of which she described in an article in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Zoologists have found that males not only do not try to avoid "execution" on the contrary, they compete for hungry females. The new findings contradict the traditional view of entomologists.
So, science knew that female praying mantises of the species Pseudomantis albofimbriata attract males with the help of pheromones. When there is a sexual partner, they often devour him even before mating, and not after him. Until now, scientists have assumed that females that eat well and can produce more healthy offspring attract more males. But this hypothesis turned out to be wrong.
Barry theorized that females who are hungry release more pheromones because they are at greater risk than well-fed, healthy competitors. By attracting males, starving females of P. albofimbriata thus solve the problem of food shortages.
To test this idea, Barry and her colleagues caught several female praying mantis and placed them in a mesh cage. The males were in a separate cage. The researchers fed the females differently, resulting in four groups - fed, moderately fed, undernourished, and hungry. A few days later, scientists placed insects of both sexes in the same cage and calculated which group representatives have more success with fans.
Hungry female praying mantis bite off not only the head, but also the upper limbs of their potential partner, and after a short struggle devour him completely (Wikimedia Commons).
Analysis of the data showed that males more often attempted to mate with females from the "well-fed" group than with those who ate moderately or insufficiently. But the big surprise for zoologists was that hungry partners were twice as popular as well-fed ones.
As Barry explains in a press release, these findings contradict generally accepted theories about evolutionarily shaped sexual behavior, as hungry females produce very few eggs and are least likely to have healthy offspring.
Apparently, instead, they focus their body on the production of pheromones in order to attract as many potential partners as possible. They eat them and "pass" into the category of well-fed, thereby gaining a chance to give birth to healthy offspring.
Barry also added that the process of cruel reprisal of hungry females over partners is somewhat different from that observed in well-fed females. What happens in the latter, we have already described above. The first ones bite off the male not only the head, but also the forelimbs, thereby complicating the task of forced mating for him. It is worth noting here that the life of a male praying mantis does not end with the loss of his head - he has an extra brain in the abdominal cavity.
After a long struggle of interests (the female wants to eat the male, but he still wants to mate), the cruel scene, as a rule, ends with the victory of the hungry representative of the fair sex. Finally convinced of her victory, the female P. albofimbriata devours her mate completely.
Praying mantises have become famous in the animal kingdom due to the special relationship between females and males. As you know, female individuals kill their partner.
Immediately after copulation begins, females deprive their partner of the head by biting off. In this case, the sexual intercourse, in principle, continues, since the male's seed continues to be transmitted to the female for a certain period. As a result, the female lays at least ten, maximum four hundred eggs, which are stored in a special capsule made of foamy protein raw materials, referred to in the scientific world as ooteku. Then the female hangs the capsule on a blade of grass or a branch of a tree, and she herself goes to finish eating the father of her children.
Before proceeding to describe the reasons for such strange behavior of females, let's figure out what mantises are.
Firstly, these are predatory insects, the sizes of which are within five centimeters. Praying mantises have a well-developed flying machine, but they rarely use it. They resemble long green leaves in appearance, although brown, yellow, and other variations are found in nature. These insects inhabit the tropical and subtropical belts of our planet.
It is widely believed that praying mantises spend most of their life in the grass, but this is far from the case. You can find them on trees, flowers. Common praying mantises are real conservationists, destroying various pests, but flower mantises themselves are such. Since sitting on flowers they eat pollinating insects.
Praying mantises are excellent hunters, despite the fact that nature has cheated them in size, she gave them steel patience. It is because of this that they can spend hours in the same position, waiting for the victim. And as a rule, their hunt bears the desired fruits. The position of the body at the time of the hunt resembles a human prayer posture. Therefore, the insect has such an unusual name.
Males are much smaller than females, so the latter constitute a huge threat to them.
Praying mantises can save their lives only if their lady ate enough before mating, or the male overtook his companion during the hunt and managed to take an expectant, and then dominant position, and at the end of sexual intercourse quickly disappeared. At the same time, hungry females attract more males, since they are able to release a large amount of pheromones. It is for such ladies that the males arrange real duels, fights for life and death.
So, now let's move on to the main question, what all the same pushes females to such desperate actions. We, based on a number of studied scientific articles, have identified two factors:
- Increased semen flow and quantity. In order to obtain the partner's seed, the female deliberately bites off his head during intercourse. This, in turn, speeds up the movement of the partner and the amount of sperm doubles. Why is that? It's simple, the nerve endings located in the male abdomen are responsible for the reproductive function;
- Valuable protein for egg development. In order to enrich her body and future offspring with a sufficient amount of protein, the female takes such measures, sacrificing the male.
Female praying mantis have a killing habit and eat their mates during mating. For what? Fascinating new research shows that this sacrifice gives males an excellent reproductive advantage.
Cannibalism among praying mantises is well documented, and scientists are discussing the reasons for this phenomenon. New research shows that females who eat their partners after mating produce more eggs than those who do not. Moreover, by eating the male, the widow ensures that he will provide food for the offspring after death.
About 25 percent of all collisions result in the death of the male.
A female praying mantis usually begins by biting off her mate's head.
Incredibly, this is 63 percent. Scientists have suggested that she manages to stock up on food at a critical moment in the reproductive life cycle, but the fact remains unproven.
To be sure, the researchers embedded traceable radioactive amino acids into crickets that were eaten by males. Then each of them mated with a female praying mantis. Half of them were saved from the duplicity of their mistress, and the other half ... well, you know what happened to the other half. The researchers then set out to study the reproductive success of each female.
Study
By following the flow of radioactive proteins through their bodies, the scientists tracked the contribution of the recently eaten male. Males that were eaten transferred nearly 90 percent of their labeled amino acids, while survivors transferred approximately 25 percent via ejaculate.
A significant part of the amino acids was transferred to the babies, which means that they are not completely metabolized by the female. It turns out that in addition to ejaculate, body tissue is used to produce eggs. Praying mantis after death - provides food for its offspring.
Mantis females that ate their partners produced more eggs than those who did not. On average, cannibals produced about 88 eggs, those who did not eat about 37 eggs. This is a big difference, which gives eaten males an excellent reproductive advantage.
