When our group's search yielded no results, we already received a signal from our companions.
The hollow and dull sound of knocking on wood came from not far away, and there were several different directions conveying the same message - found it.
I quietly raised the antennae high, carefully receiving the vibrations in the air, trying to read the information in the signal that was severely attenuated due to distance.
Due north, not far away.
Soon, I knew the location of the target and quickly headed north with two young soldiers. There will definitely be a big battle soon, and I need to support my teammates as soon as possible. The tribe needs to rely on the numerical superiority of its warriors to kill or expel the bark mantis with minimal losses.
Crawling close to the ground, crawling over rocks, gravel and soil, crawling under shrubs, trees and weeds, new signals came from time to time along the way, but the overall content did not change.
It seemed that the mantis still stayed in place and did not break out into a fight with the soldiers.
I quickly arrived at the target location with two followers. Many soldiers had gathered here, but no fighting had broken out yet.
What surprised me was that these warriors did not hide their appearance, but stood carelessly at the highest point of the plant, staring in the same direction.
If it were a group of young warriors, I would also think that they underestimated the enemy, thinking that they did not need to hide themselves because of their numerical advantage.
But when I saw that there were Broken Legs and several other senior soldiers among this group of soldiers, I knew there must be something fishy.
Sure enough, when I saw the bark mantis, I was beyond surprised.
It has a short, thick and flat body like a cockroach, with an almost square chest, messy dark brown spots on its body, and a pair of huge serrated front legs. This is indeed the bark mantis - if it hadn't disappeared. Head words.
None of us had ever experienced such a shocking scene - an apex predator, a behemoth that required our entire tribe to deal with it, had its head chewed off like this.
And it is still alive. Although it has no head and will die sooner or later, it is still alive now, standing on the spot, vigilantly raising the big knife and preparing to protect itself.
Who ate its head and made it so fearful and vigilant?
——I am the dividing line——
Voiceover: Many friends have already guessed after seeing this. This is a male praying mantis whose head was eaten during mating.
Traditional research believes that eating mates is a part of mantis mating activities, and males will sacrifice their lives for the next generation. But that's not accurate.
Some studies support this conclusion. Praying mantises are generalist predators and will not refuse basically any living creature as long as they can catch it. Whether it's insects, spiders, frogs, lizards, mice or birds, they are all recorded in the mantis' preying record. Male praying mantises can certainly be considered a good meal for females.
In a study on the mantis mantis, the experimenters divided the females into three groups and controlled their nutritional status through feeding to analyze the impact of husbandricide on their offspring. Experimental results show that the weight of mantises (egg masses of mantises) produced by malnourished females will be greatly reduced; but if these wolf-like female mantises are allowed to eat their mates, the weight of their mantises can be significantly increased. Experimental records reveal the reason why this experiment was not conducted - well-fed female mantises rarely eat their mates.
Research on another type of mantis, the Mediterranean rainbow mantis, directly compared females that ate their mates with those that did not, but came up with another result: Female mantises that ate their mates did not lay more eggs.
In general, for the hungry female, the male praying mantis is the food that comes to her door; but for the less hungry female, there may be no shortage of this food.
And the male mantis will not actively sacrifice himself for the sake of his offspring! When a male praying mantis approaches a female, he is always cautious and approaches quietly from behind. When it is almost within the attack range of the female, it will find the opportunity to jump on the back of the female mantis in one fell swoop. If the male mantis in the tail row is noticed by the opponent, they will often run away. Males will try their best to avoid being eaten by their mates. After all, if you save your life, you will have more opportunities to mate and leave more offspring.
Not only that, female mantises with good nutrition are not only more polite to their mates, but also appear more attractive in the eyes of males. Arizona mantises are a common species in the southwestern United States, and researchers have found that females of these mantises are much more likely to attack males when they are hungry. Therefore, not only do their males tend to pursue well-fed females, but the mating activities recorded in the wild occur during the months when females have the most abundant nutrients.
Other studies have shown that well-fed female mantises release pheromones that are more attractive to males.
Under artificial breeding conditions, male praying mantises cannot freely choose the right time, place and object, and there is not enough space to maneuver and avoid. If the female mantis is also hungry because she has not received careful care, the drama of eating her mate will occur frequently.
Research on the "sexual cannibalism" behavior of mantises has basically focused on large, strong and fierce mantises such as ax mantises, knife mantises and thin-winged mantises. On the one hand, this is because they are relatively common, but on the other hand, it is also because they have a relatively high probability of eating their mates.
The thin-winged mantis and the Chinese broadsword mantis are two widely distributed large mantises, widely distributed in Eurasia and North America. Because their females have violent personalities, the males are naturally more likely to die. The probability of a thin-winged mantis eating its mate in the wild is about 30%, while the probability of a male Chinese mantis dying during mating in the wild is about 20%. It can be seen that even when faced with the most dangerous target, under natural conditions, males can still escape unscathed most of the time.
But most mantises are actually quite ordinary mantises. They mainly feed on flying insects, and their slender body structure is not suitable for knocking down large prey, such as their own kind. Even under artificial conditions, these mantises can be raised in groups without any difficulty, and there is no need to worry too much about cannibalism. For example, Indian fiddle-cone mantis, ghost mantis, etc.
There are also some mantises that show extreme sexual dimorphism. Compared with the females, the males are extremely short, such as the famous orchid mantis. The males of these species can live leisurely on the back of their wives, eating and sleeping, but occasionally male orchid mantises have occurred. The story of the mantis being eaten. The very mild-mannered Texas mantis also occasionally eats its mates.
As well-armed predators, female mantises are capable of eating their mates. But no matter what kind of mantis, eating mates is not a necessary part of mating. It is just an unsuccessful escape experience for male mantises.
Generally speaking, as long as the female mantis is not too hungry, she will not embarrass the male too much, and the male will be more discerning and find a mating partner with good nutrition.
