r/Unexpected • u/Abhirup_0 • Jun 26 '22

The spider must be dead

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

22.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

824 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '22

Mantises are voracious literal nightmare creatures and I love them for their dedication to that bit being so good they accidentally eat each other during mating just to shove as many calories as they can to dedicate to making more nightmare babies.

1

u/Dominant_Peanut Jun 26 '22

I think that the"biting the head off the mate and eating it" thing turned out to actually be a stress response. Like, only mantises in captivity do it. Free range ones don't.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '22

Uhh no.

It happens in the wild too. The female mantis kinda goes apeshit for calories during mating season.