From MinuteEarth.
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In the middle of baby-making, a female praying mantis will sometimes chomp down on a male’s head, then devour him as she finishes mating with him. And mantises aren’t alone; many different species lunch on their lovers. But one thing is remarkably consistent: it’s almost always the females doing the eating. Why is it dudes that always end up as dinner?
LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
– Sexual cannibalism: the practice of consuming a mate directly before, during, or after mating
– Aggressive spillover: the idea that aggression that’s favored for early in life can be maladaptive in a mating situation
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CREDITS
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Kate Yoshida | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Arcadi Garcia i Rius | Storyboard Artist
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music
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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke
Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes
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REFERENCES
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Brown WD, Barry KL (2016). Sexual cannibalism increases male material investment in offspring: quantifying terminal reproductive effort in a praying mantis. Proc Biol Sci 283(1833):20160656. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0656
Burke N (2024). Sexual cannibalism as a female resistance trait: a new hypothesis, Evolution (78)4: 612–623, https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpae017
Hunter P (2023). Ultimate sacrifice or opportunistic foraging?: The selective forces behind sexual cannibalism: The selective forces behind sexual cannibalism. EMBO 24(2):e56764. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.202356764
Sentenská L, Pekár S (2013). Mate with the young, kill the old: reversed sexual cannibalism and male mate choice in the spider Micaria sociabilis (Araneae: Gnaphosidae). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 1131–1139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1538-1
Zuk M (2016). Mates with Benefits: When and How Sexual Cannibalism Is Adaptive. Current Biology 26(23):R1230-R1232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.017
