Why is it always males that get eaten during sex?

Опубликовано 4 декабря 2025, 18:20

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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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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. 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, 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. doi.org/10.15252/embr.20235676...

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. doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-153...

Zuk M (2016). Mates with Benefits: When and How Sexual Cannibalism Is Adaptive. Current Biology 26(23):R1230-R1232. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.10....