A male Springbok religious mantis looking for a link doesn’t have to worry about a female stealing his heart.
There is, however, a very good change that will bite his head, and he knows it.
In fact, 60 percent of sexual encounters between Springboks (one of nearly 2,000 species of mantises worldwide) end up being eaten by males as a snack.
“Males play Russian roulette every time they meet cannibal females,” explains Nathan Burke, an entomologist at the University of Auckland and an expert on mantis mating rituals.
All male mantises show great caution when approaching a potential mate. Hard to blame them.
But while most will hide behind or distract the female with a tasty snout, the Springbok has a completely different (and so far unreported) strategy for staying alive, according to findings released Wednesday. Biology letters.
“Under the threat of a cannibal attack, males try to subdue women by staring at them in violent fights,” said Burke, co-author with fellow study Gregory Holwell.
Female mantis wounded by fighting with a male. (© Dr. Nathan W Burke)
Men who win the fight of lovers are much more likely to consume the relationship, “which suggests that wrestling is both a mating tactic and a survival tactic,” he added.
According to gladiator experiments with 52 pairs of mantises, the key to victory was shocking first.
If the male went faster in the draw and grabbed the female with the front legs of the rapture toothed, he had a 78% chance of escaping unharmed.
And when, in addition, the male caused a serious but not fatal wound to the abdomen, he held his head each time.
“I was very surprised to find that males injured females while trying to subdue them by mating,” Burke said. “Nothing like this had ever been observed on the blankets.”
However, if the female caught first, the males were always killed and devoured.
Asexual reproduction
In general, men outperformed half the time in these fairs, which lasted 13 seconds on average.
Winning the match did not automatically lead to mating: mating only happened two-thirds of the time, and even the male ended up in the female’s stomach half the time.
The bright green Springbok mantis, also known as Miomantis caffra, is native to southern Africa, but has spread to New Zealand, southern Europe, and California, probably through the pet trade.
The nutrients obtained when a religious mantis eats its pretender benefit its offspring as they grow.
Sexual cannibalism, when the female of a species consumes the male during or after mating, is also known among spiders, such as the black widow and scorpions.
Usually smaller males do what they can to avoid swallowing, including dead games.
But Springbok female blankets have another trick up their sleeve: the ability to reproduce asexually or without the help of males.
“They can produce clones of themselves if they don’t mate,” Burke said.
Having this alternative to Plan B raises an interesting question: If females are so good at cannibalizing males and can reproduce without sex, how do males continue to exist?
“That’s what motivated me to look so closely at male mating tactics,” Burke said.
Sexual conflict theory, he explained to us, tells us that men in this situation should evolve countermeasures to help them mate and stay relevant.
And it’s true, that’s what the researchers found.
“It’s a fascinating example of how sexual conflict can lead to the evolution of mating tactics that help one sex but hinder the other.” (…)
© France-Presse Agency