A fairy tale about a mantis eating her husband

The mantis girl and the mantis young man met during a battle with locusts and fell in love at first sight. The little animals held a grand wedding for them. On the morning after the wedding, everyone found that the groom had been eaten and reported the situation to Sheriff Black Cat. Sheriff Black Cat rushed to the scene immediately. After investigation, the police chief understood the reason. The Sheriff held a TV conference and told everyone that it is the habit of the mantis for the bride to eat the groom. In order to reproduce the next generation, the groom must make sacrifices. The mantis girl handed her husband's suicide note to the Sheriff. Sheriff Black Cat acquits the bride.

Just when the male mantis was in ecstasy, the female mantis turned around like lightning, bit off the male mantis's head and ate it into her belly. Why does a female praying mantis kill the male praying mantis she is having sex with? This problem has always puzzled people. It was not until 1990 that animal behaviorists solved this ancient mystery: the female mantis did not kill the male mantis in anger and anger, but to stimulate the male mantis to stimulate his body and semen. Make sure that semen is continuously injected into his body. It turns out that the inhibitory center of the male praying mantis nervous system is in the head. Once the male mantis loses its head, it also loses its inhibitory function. The semen in the body of the headless male mantis will flow into the female mantis to ensure the fertilization of the eggs. While mating, the female praying mantis bites the male from the head to the tail until it reaches the male's abdomen. At this time, the female praying mantis is not only full, but the eggs in her body are also fully fertilized, and she can eat the richly nutritious food. The eggs are laid.

Some other insects, such as crickets, grasshoppers, ant lions, and ground beetles, also have a similar phenomenon of female praying mantises eating their husbands. However, they are not as impatient as female praying mantises. Instead, they wait until the mating is completed before eating their partners. Eat. But there is a kind of male fly that is very good at playing tricks to avoid being eaten: the male fly wraps a little bit of food layer by layer, and then offers the food as a new gift to his bride. While the bride spends a lot of time opening the food package layer by layer, the male flies have already finished mating and fled away. There are even more stingy ones, there is nothing in the gift bag, and they simply use an empty cocoon shell to deceive love, and at the same time avoid the disaster of death.