Why Male Mantises Willing to Be Eaten? Is it a Sacrifice for Love?
Mantises are very common insects in nature, with a global distribution except for the poles, with 2000 different species. Mantises belong to insects with a relatively large body size, generally with a length of 55-105mm, so they can prey on many small insects harmful to agriculture. Mantises are also beneficial insects.
There is also such a saying about mantises in the folk, because there are frequent cases of female mantises preying on male mantises, so some people say that male mantises both love their wives and children. In order to support their families and future generations, they are willing to sacrifice their lives. Is this really the case? The image of male mantises has become much taller.However, scientists disagree. The above statement is too emotional, and we should analyze it rationally.
Female mantises are eaten as lunch by male mantises, which is not a voluntary behavior of male mantises. If there is an opportunity to run away, male individuals would have long since slipped away. Second, male mantises will not sacrifice their lives because of love, they only have two instincts: first, to continue to survive, and second, to reproduce offspring. Can a simple organism have love? Even mating behavior is completed under the influence of hormones.
Therefore, male mantises are unwilling to be eaten, but sometimes they are unlucky and are caught by female mantises. There is only one ending. Female mantises also exhibit the phenomenon of ‘self-eating’ among the same species, which is common in many insect classes, such as spiders also exhibit this phenomenon, female mantises will eat males.
Now we know that male mantises being eaten is not voluntary, nor is it because of love, but mainly because small male mantises are easily caught and cannot escape. Mantises are generally larger females, which may be related to sexual selection. Female mantises, because they invest more, they have the initiative, and male mantises have competition among themselves. Female mantises may eat male mantises in the late stage of courtship, in order to achieve this purpose, male mantises need to be a little smaller, otherwise it would be impossible to beat them!
Therefore, under a long period of evolutionary development, female mantises tend to choose smaller individuals, which helps them in hunting, and also benefits their offspring. Therefore, male mantises are smaller in size, which is the result of selection.
In 1984, biologist Richard and Davis conducted experiments on the Chinese mantis to compare the phenomenon of self-eating. To make a comparison, they divided the female mantises into three groups, one group let them eat food to fill their stomachs, ensuring they were in an unhungry state during the experiment. The other two groups put them in different levels of hunger (such as respectively, hungry for two days and four days).The final experimental results found that the female mantises in the four-day hungry group most readily captured and ate male mantises when they met. While the two-day hungry group partially completed the courtship behavior and the male mantis was eaten after courtship. The group that fully filled their stomachs did not exhibit the phenomenon of predation, and completed the courtship and the male mantis easily escaped after courtship.
From the results, it can be seen that female mantises eating male mantises is mainly due to hunger. This result is good, especially after courtship, female mantises can quickly supplement energy by eating male mantises, which is beneficial to their offspring.
Let's take a look at the female mantis's egg. Regardless of the data, from the pictures, their size accounts for a large proportion of the female mantis's size, and generally, after courtship, female mantises will lay 3-5 egg. If they don't eat male mantises after courtship, where will they get nutrition?
In fact, we don't need to complain about male mantises, this is the best pattern formed by the species in evolution. Although male mantises may be eaten, there will be more small mantises appear in the following year or the next year, to supplement the population of this species.
Male mantises are also vigilant to avoid being eaten by female mantises, so when going to courtship, they are very cautious. They will jump directly onto the back of the female mantis to complete the courtship, which can minimize being grabbed and eaten by female mantises. After completing the task, they quickly set off for the next target, and the male mantis's goal is to complete as many courtship opportunities as possible before losing their lives, and to leave more offspring.
