Sexual cannibalism in Praying MantisBiology 342 Fall 2012Anand Panchal, Kimmy Stanton, Emmeline Hill |
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MechanismSeveral studies have shown that starved females are more likely to cannibalize their mate than well fed females (Andrade, M.B. 1998). So when thinking about mating, the male has to use physical and chemical cues to determine the foraging abilities of the female. A recent study showed that this was the case in black widows. The researchers, from Arizona State University, found that males courted well-fed females significantly more than starved females. Interestingly, the researchers also found that males use chemical and physical cues to determine the female’s past foraging success, such as the quality of the female’s web. As such, even when the female spider was entirely absent from the picture, males spent more time courting the webs of well-fed females. Praying mantises have developed similar mechanisms through which males figure out ways to decrease the risk of their mortality by picking well fed females.
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