March 2007
The female praying mantis will eat the male (head first) while they’re mating. Right? Wrong. This character in fact shows substantial intra- and inter-specific variation. This study from Animal Behaviour many years ago examines some of the reasons – one of them appears to be that they are vicious predators, and if nosy scientists go looking at them too closely, the female tends to get scared, forgets what she’s doing, and ends up eating the nearest thing to hand…
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