Scientists find male praying mantises taking a stand against cannibal females | Hacker News Reader

Scientists find male praying mantises taking a stand against cannibal females

cbc.ca

20 pointsBluestein14 comments

"If the male won, mating was achieved in 58 percent of all encounters. If the female won, she almost always cannibalized the male without him getting an opportunity to mate. "

Seems good for evolution. Weak males serve as a source of food for the females and don't pass on their genes. Strong ones get to sire young with multiple partners instead of getting eaten after one.

Except that being good at fighting other praying mantises doesn't necessarily indicate e.g. being able to get a good ratio of hunted food to bodily needs.

There's usually a tremendous evolutionary pressure towards lower resource needs.

I assume mantises that don't get enough resources won't be very good at fighting.

Yeah but a smaller, weaker body can find sufficient food more easily because it’s needs are far lower. Growing big and strong means a higher risk of starvation, means you have to take more risks (eg of birds eating you) to get food.

Not how carnivores work, I'd say.

Most carnivores are also prey animals, and have to worry about bigger carnivores.

Hindu mythology had a story similar to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinaka_(Hinduism)

Pinaka bow was like the thor's hammer in hindu mythology. It was placed in dashratha's palace. One day dashratha saw sita lifting it casually when playing with her sisters, so he declared the bow to be a test for those who wanted to marry sita.

We and our ancestors didn't eat babies, so it goes to show how shallow and naive evolution is.

"Female praying mantises of many species cannibalize their mates, who often have no defence against their large and aggressive partners.

But a new study by Nathan Burke, a postdoctoral research fellow in biological sciences at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, has found that that is not always the case. The male Springbok mantis can be the aggressor, and does what it takes to win the fight in order to successfully mate - and survive."

From this data it can be deduced that females don't want mating at all, they just want to eat.

Met a few of those ... :)

Battle for child alimony.

Male humans are evolving analogous tactics to evade being cannabilized for child support.

Heh ...

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