Things you wouldn’t like to be 1 – Praying Mantis

by Darren

I photographed this praying mantis in the jungle while on Sulawesi a couple of years back.  If you’re a bloke and you believe in reincarnation, coming back as a male praying mantis has got to rank even lower than coming back as a male hyena (and even lower than coming back as someone who has to listen to a hyena bore like me).

They practice ‘sexual cannibalism’ which means that while doing the deed, the female bites off the male’s head (I guess some humans have to put up with that, but these gals do it literally).  Yes, I know, so many double entendrés come to mind.

In case you do end up drawing the unlucky straw next time, the most dangerous time is during the dismount.  Just so you know….

And no, I didn’t see it.  This one was eaten by a Tarsier (a tiny primate).  It didn’t even mate with him first!

Besides, if I had ‘that’ picture, do you think I’d be showing you this one?

Posted on Monday, October 11th, 2010 at 7:41 pm. Filed under: Other Tags: aggressive female, cannibalism, insects, jungle, macro, mating, praying mantis, sex, sexual cannibalism RSS 2.0 feed.

Comments are closed.