In the early stages, the female praying mantis needs to recuperate for the breeding season and lay hundreds of eggs, the female praying mantis will consume a very large amount of energy, and she is in urgent need of food and a mate for the healthy growth of her offspring.
Female praying mantises lay eggs
The female praying mantis has a very important secret weapon that allows her not to run around for offspring. At this time, she would agitate her fat belly, which was a fatal temptation for male praying mantises. And the spread distance of this pheromone is very wide, which can attract the male praying mantises within a few miles of the circle and release this pheromone, which is also her announcement that she is "recruiting husbands" and making the male praying mantises flock to them.
The female praying mantis releases the pheromone courtship
After absorbing this signal, the male mantis will not hesitate to rush over, like the female mantis marriage proposal, many times will be successful, however, the male mantis does not know the crisis of this going, do not know that this may be eternal for him.
The time for the mantis to cross the tail is long and short, some can grow for a few hours, some are only a few minutes and seconds, depending on the species, no matter which kind of mantis, the female mantis after the end of fertilization, more than 90% of the male mantis will be this fate, supplementing the energy she needs to reproduce offspring.
The female praying mantis eats her mate and replenishes her energy
Scientists have shown that the female praying mantises that eat their mates will produce more high-quality eggs and more quantities, and if there is no energy supplement, the quality of the offspring will be greatly reduced.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > why do female mantises eat male mantises? </h1>
Some people say that the reason why the female mantis eats its mate is because the male mantis has substance in its body, and the female mantis needs this substance to reproduce offspring, otherwise it will not be able to produce offspring. It is also said that the head of the praying mantis has nerves that inhibit the release of sperm, and only by biting off the head of the male mantis can the process of fertilization be completed. In fact, this is not quite right, some scientists have done relevant experiments, female mantis in order to reproduce and give birth does not have to eat male mantis can be.
Two praying mantises of love
The scientists' experiment was a controlled experiment, divided into three cases: the results showed that the female mantis, who had eaten enough, did not eat the male mantis when it was tailed with the male mantis, but let it go. And when the hungry female praying mantis saw the male mantis, no matter whether the three seven twenty-one went directly up and killed the male mantis, it did not reach the step of courtship, let alone the tail. When the half-fed female mantis encounters a male mantis who comes to court, he is allowed to come over and breed offspring, and at the end, he will eat the male mantis to replenish energy.
Praying mantis cross-tails
From the results of the experiment, it can be seen that the reason why the female mantis eats the male mantis is not for the sake of smooth fertilization, nor because the male mantis has a special substance in the body. The reason why the female mantis eats the male mantis is only because of hunger. To replenish the enormous amount of energy needed for reproduction.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > male mantis is willingly eaten by a female mantis? </h1>
Many people will have this question, why does the male mantis not resist or run away after the tailfly with the female mantis, but let the female mantis do it?
At the end of the mating, the female mantis eats the male mantis
Some of the more alert male praying mantises will quickly bounce away when they are done, saving their lives. There are also some who wrestle with the female mantis to fight for a chance to survive. Most male praying mantises cannot resist because of their lack of physical strength after they have finished their work.
The most important reason why the male mantis cannot resist is the suppression of the natural size of the female mantis, the female mantis is generally much larger than the male mantis, and the strength is much stronger than the male mantis, so even if both are peak strength, the male mantis can not defeat the female mantis, and the result is that it will become the energy of the female mantis to reproduce offspring.
Difference in the size of male and female praying mantises (the larger is the female mantis)
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > written at the end:</h1>
Writing this article, I can't help but think of the scene in "Black Cat Sheriff" in which the mantis girl ate her husband, the mantis guy helped the mantis girl family to protect the home, smoothly with the mantis girl, but in the cave room candle night, the mantis boy left the world forever, at that time also felt that this mantis girl's heart was too cruel, even his husband could treat it like this. Looking back now, this drama is just giving us this kind of knowledge of popular science mantises, which is indeed like the mantis girl said, this is just the "custom" of the mantis family, and I can't help but think about it.
The mantis couple in Black Cat Sheriff
Finally, the reason why the praying mantis will eat the male mantis after fertilization is not because of anything else, but simply because the female mantis needs to consume a huge amount of energy to reproduce, and the mother mantis is also to replenish energy. Male praying mantises are also not "willing", but powerless.
I am @ a que floating life, like friends to click a thumbs up to pay attention to it, let's learn to explore the magic of nature together.