When our group's search was fruitless, we had already received a signal from our companions.

The hollow, dull clatter of wood came from not far away, and the same message was being relayed from several different directions—it had been found.

I silently raised my antennae, carefully listening to the vibrations in the air, trying to read the messages in the signals that were badly attenuated by the distance.

Due north, not far away.

Soon, I knew where my target was and quickly headed north with two young warriors. There's going to be a big fight in a while, and I'm going to support my teammates as soon as possible. The tribe needs to rely on the numerical superiority of the warriors to kill or expel the bark mantis with minimal losses.

Crawling all the way to the ground, crawling over rocks, gravel and dirt, crawling under shrubs, trees and weeds, new signals coming from time to time along the way, the overall content remained unchanged.

It seems that the praying mantis remained in place and did not break out into battle with the fighters.

I quickly arrived at the target location with two of my henchmen, where a number of warriors had gathered, but no battle had yet broken out.

To my surprise, these warriors did not hide their figures, but stood at the top of the plant with a big grin, staring in the same direction.

If it's a group of young warriors, I think they're too underestimated, thinking that if they have a numerical advantage, they don't need to hide themselves.

But when I saw that there were also Broken Leg and a few other senior fighters in this group of fighters, I knew that something must be wrong.

Sure enough, when I saw the bark mantis, I was amazed.

With its short, stubby and flat body, almost square chest, messy black-brown patches on its color, and a pair of large serrated forelegs, this is indeed the bark mantis, if not its lack of head.

None of us have ever experienced such a shocking spectacle - an apex predator, a behemoth that requires our entire tribe to deal with, has been gnawed off its head.

And it is alive, although it has no head, and sooner or later it will die, but it is still alive, standing in place, vigilantly raising its broadsword and preparing to protect itself.

Who ate its head and made it so fearful and vigilant?

- I'm the dividing line -

Voiceover: Many friends have already guessed that this is a male mantis whose head was eaten during mating.

Conventional research has suggested that eating mates is part of the mating activity of praying mantises, and that males will sacrifice their lives for the sake of the next generation. But this is not accurate.

Some studies support this conclusion. Praying mantis is a predator that eats widely and will not refuse almost anything alive, as long as it can catch it. Whether it's insects, spiders, frogs, lizards, rats, or birds, it's all in the praying mantis's predation record. Male praying mantis can of course be regarded as a good meal for females.

In a study of the praying mantis, the experimenters analyzed the effects of femicide on their offspring by dividing females into three groups and feeding them to control their nutritional status. The results of the experiment showed that the weight of the cockroach (the egg mass of the praying mantis) produced by malnourished females was greatly reduced; But if these wolf-like female mantis mantis are allowed to eat their mates, their cricket weight can be significantly increased. Experimental records reveal the reason why this experiment was not performed - well-fed female praying mantis rarely ate mates.

A study of another type of praying mantis, the Mediterranean rainbow mantis, directly compared mate-eating and non-mate-eating females, but came to another result: the female praying mantis that ate her mates did not lay more eggs.

In general, for females who are starved and have straight eyes, the male praying mantis is the food that is delivered to the door; But for the less hungry female praying mantis, there may really be no shortage of this stutter.

And the male praying mantis will not take the initiative to sacrifice himself for the sake of future generations! When a male praying mantis approaches a female, he will always be cautious and sneak in from behind. When it is almost within the range of the female's attack, it will find an opportunity to jump on the back of the female mantis in one go. If the male mantis in the tail row is noticed by the other party, they tend to run away, and the male will try to avoid being eaten by his mate. After all, only by saving a small life can there be more opportunities to mate and leave more offspring.

Not only that, but female praying mantis with good nutritional status is not only more polite to their mates, but also appears more attractive in the eyes of males. The Arizona praying mantis, a common species in the southwestern United States, has found that females of these praying mantis are much more likely to attack males when they are hungry. As a result, not only do males favor well-fed females, but the mating activity recorded in the wild occurs during the months when females have the most nutrient accumulation.

Other studies have shown that well-nourished female mantis releases pheromones that are more attractive to males.

Under captive conditions, male praying mantis cannot freely choose the right time, place and object, and there is not enough space to maneuver and hide. If the female mantis is also hungry because she has not been carefully cared for, the drama of eating her mate will be played out frequently.

The research on the behavior of praying mantis "eating its own kind" basically focuses on the large, strong and fierce praying mantises, such as the axe mantis, the knife mantis, and the thin-winged mantis. On the one hand, because they are more common, but also because they have a relatively high chance of eating a mate.

Thin-winged mantis and Chinese giant mantis are two large praying mantis species that are widely distributed across Eurasia and North America. Due to their violent female nature, the chance of the male dying is naturally higher. The chance of eating a mate in the wild is about 30%, while the chance of a male being killed in a wild mate is about 20%. It can be seen that even in the face of the most dangerous targets, under natural conditions, males are still able to escape most of the time.

But more praying mantis are actually quite approachable praying mantises, they mainly feed on flying insects, and their slender body structure is not suitable for taking down large prey, such as their own kind. Even in captivity, these praying mantis can be raised in groups without any difficulty, without worrying too much about cannibalism. For example, the Indian cone mantis, the ghost mantis, and so on.

There are also some praying mantis that show extreme sexual dimorphism, compared to females, males are extremely short, such as the famous orchid mantis, these types of males can leisurely stay on their wives' backs to eat and live, but occasionally there have been stories of male orchid mantis being eaten. The very mild Texas unicorn mantis also has occasional incidents of eating mates.

As heavily armed predators, female mantis is capable of eating mates. But no matter what kind of praying mantis, eating a mate is not a necessary part of mating, it is just an unsuccessful mating escape experience of the male mantis.

Generally speaking, female praying mantis generally does not embarrass males too much as long as they are not too hungry, and males will also have more eyes to find a mating partner with good nutritional status.