Snack Sized

[00:00] Coalson, it is time for some under Googables, which you got for us this week? How can we help you?
[00:13] Oh, we do under Googables. That was the play of super excited told us we had to
[00:21] we signed up for it. In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:28] So this is another one that I had from the summer, and I've just held on to without Googling. This
[00:37] might be a math question or get us back into, you know, evolutionary stuff. But basically, there used
[00:47] to be a for about a week, there was a praying mantis that lived on my screen, and just kind of
[00:54] wandered around the screen and I guess was eating stuff, you know, and every night you go out and
[01:00] just a little bit further down the screen or whatever. They're not real fast moving. And
[01:05] apparently, we had some sort of level of food for him or her there. But it got me thinking.
[01:13] So the thing with praying mantis is right is that during sex, the female bites the
[01:19] male's head off. Is that correct? I think after like after. Okay, sure. Like at the end of the
[01:26] process. Okay, sure. Okay, well, when I was thinking about that, as far as efficiency, I was thinking
[01:34] about how like in a lot of other, you know, animals, so you know, like sort of bowls and
[01:41] cows or whatever, wherever, like you basically have the male is just going to go around and
[01:45] just impregnate as many things as possible to kind of keep the species alive, right? Whereas
[01:50] the male kind of has one chance. Right? So I was wondering what the birthing patterns were for
[02:00] praying mantises, whether they have like a huge litter, whether there are more males produced
[02:05] than females, whether it's all sort of randomized, or how does this make sense numbers wise and
[02:10] evolutionarily wise? That was my question. Okay, that's a good question. I know nothing
[02:20] about praying mantises. So yeah, I don't know any like, I guess I don't know any other species that
[02:25] do that that I can think of. You know, that you murder your partner at the end of.
[02:34] Yeah, because basically that you're just you've only got one shot, essentially, right? So like,
[02:38] this is you're not going to go around and have lots of other.
[02:45] Right. I mean, it seems like an extreme choice, or extreme example of sexual selection by females,
[02:53] which is not uncommon in the animal kingdom. Very matriarchal society, praying mantises.
[02:59] Okay, sure. Without a doubt.
[03:01] Well, and many other species, right, is, you know, like a bunch of different bird species,
[03:06] like the males have these crazy plumages and all that stuff, because females are selecting
[03:11] to have sex with them. Right. And so we're not. Yeah, we're not. Right.
[03:17] They have the choices. And in this case, the, I suppose the competitive advantage,
[03:24] right from the female's perspective is if she finds a good male that has the right
[03:28] characteristics, then she wants her offspring and only her offspring to inherit that
[03:37] good genetics, right?
[03:39] The other part of that is that in a low population density species,
[03:47] like you said, they're not fast movers, right? They are direct competition with each other for
[03:50] food on some level, right? So now, whatever he might have eaten can go to the baby.
[03:57] The baby mantis.
[03:59] That's right. Right. Well, and are they just having, I mean, they've got to be having more
[04:03] than one. Otherwise, I feel like this, but this, the whole population just falls apart,
[04:07] right? Like that you can't numbers game, right?
[04:09] Like, yeah, well, I'm assuming that mantises are like many other insects that they lay eggs
[04:16] and then they like a bunch of eggs, like a bunch of eggs. Okay.
[04:21] Like hundreds or thousands more.
[04:23] Exactly. Yeah. And then as far as sort of the distribution of sexual
[04:33] or gender, I guess, not gender, that's not the right.
[04:36] Sex is amongst the progeny.
[04:42] Yeah. Does it make sense for it to be skewed towards males in that context? I would think so.
[04:48] Yeah, you'd do more.
[04:49] Because otherwise, I mean, sort of the way I was thinking about it sort of like a
[04:54] queen bee, right? Or something like that. Like the more people that you have able
[05:02] to impregnate you, the better for that society, right? If you're if the males only get one shot.
[05:09] I suspect that in this sort of scenario, like, I've definitely heard this. I don't know that it's
[05:14] actually true. Right? Did Oh, the biting of the head thing. Yeah, I don't actually.
[05:20] But moving from that assumption, I mean, you would assume in order for the species to
[05:26] maximize, then you have to have insemination rates approaching 100%. Right? Like you just
[05:30] have to have a really high success rate. Yeah, timing was bad. And all of a sudden you're like,
[05:37] well, that guy's dead. Just move on to the next guy. That guy was great. Now he's dead.
[05:48] I waited so long to find the right guy. Yeah.
[05:53] I'm assuming that the if the females are having this much
[05:57] influence over mate choice and selection, that they would only choose to mate when they were,
[06:06] you know, ready to have offspring, right? Sure. This is when biology sort of mature
[06:13] that that's how I do it. Like a good point in their life when they're like financially stable.
[06:17] That's right. Yeah. They've gone through their hippy face.
[06:20] If you don't want to be bringing that baby brain in a backpack, you know, around Europe.
[06:32] This also reminds me of one of my favorite memes. I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's a
[06:36] there's a praying mantis with a with a beer. And he goes, might as well have another. My
[06:41] wife's gonna bite my head off anyway. Nice. Pretty good. Pretty good.
[06:47] I love those praying mantis memes, don't you? Just all we get on Slack these days.
[06:58] So we decide enough that we think that maybe the litter is very large with lots of eggs and it
[07:07] might skew towards male. That's my that's that makes sense to me. That's what I would think.
[07:15] And I also think that I agree with Harper that the the idea that mantises always kill their mates
[07:23] is overstated. Okay, so it's not just every time. So it's like maybe, right? Like I definitely don't
[07:31] want this guy impregnating anybody else. It doesn't happen every time. Would you agree that
[07:37] there's at least an attempted murder? Because maybe he's hip to what's going on. Yeah. And he's
[07:45] the French do call the mail regards on the Liberty more. Right. So it's a little every, you know,
[07:51] it's a little bit every day. I mean, maybe he's like, Oh, you know what, I got to go to the bathroom.
[07:58] I'll be right back. He don't come back. Sure. I mean, but I mean, I guess this goes to like,
[08:04] did your dad ever have a chance to tell you that this was an issue? Like maybe you just don't
[08:08] know like you're walking into a trap every time. Right. You didn't have a dad to tell you that
[08:13] you're going to get eaten. That's a good point. Yeah. Nobody's warning you about this stuff.
[08:19] And it sounds like the lack of father figures in the praying mantis community is really
[08:24] an undertold story. Yes. Well, and, and also I think probably some issue with their judicial
[08:31] system, like all these attempted murders and murders going, you know, unpunished. Well,
[08:39] I mean, who do you think sitting on the bench there? It's not the mailman. Tell you that.
[08:47] Okay. Let's see. See the cannibalism of the praying mantis is however, is mostly observed in mantises
[08:54] that are held in captivity. If he knows initially bite off the heads of their male partners before
[09:00] they actually start the process of mating. Oh, I was, I was hoping that that was not the
[09:07] case. You are not correct. Praying mantises are real weird. It's just like, uh, yeah,
[09:13] you're going to come anyway. It is still, these are repeated fella. Yeah. These are
[09:19] sexual predators. Okay. Uh, I'm reading that in praying mantises around 25% of all sexual
[09:25] encounters results in the death of the male. 70%. Okay. It is 25%. Oh, 25. Okay. Yeah. Oh,
[09:33] well that's not that bad. The female typically begins by biting off their partner's head,
[09:40] which apparently increases the vigorous sexual movement when their heads have been
[09:45] bitten off. Okay. Okay. I feel like some counseling might be able to fix this.
[09:53] Yeah. I like it better without your head on. Sorry. That's like, well, let's talk about this. Uh,
[10:00] in the actual geographic is saying maybe if the female is starving or if the male
[10:04] irritates her, she may engage in that behavior, but they don't always do it.
[10:10] So bring some food and, you know, don't be annoying. Yep. In the wild, the mating and
[10:17] reproduction of manages begins with courtship, wherein the male dances in front of the female.
[10:24] And those cannibalistic females are much more productive. They produce about 88 eggs,
[10:28] whereas those who didn't eat their partners produced about 37. Whoa. That's one study.
[10:35] Yeah. Oh my. In some cases, male praying mantis has actually comprised a significant
[10:41] portion, if not a majority of a female's diet during breeding. Oh, wow.
[10:48] These insects may eat other animals as well, including birds.
[10:55] Praying mantis are eating birds? Apparently yes. On every continent except Antarctica.
[11:02] And oh yeah, they do. Oh, there's some pictures that I can't see now.
[11:07] But apparently they eat their prey head first. Are the males smaller than the females? Yes.
[11:15] Substantially. They're, they're, they're snack size.
[11:22] Maybe that's, uh, there's, there's one school thought that it's strictly driven by hunger.
[11:28] One study showed that well-nourished female mantises refrained from cannibalism,
[11:32] while those deprived of food ate any male in sight.
[11:41] They said that she refrained from doing this. It was like, it was a bad idea.
[11:47] Oh, would you, would you mind refraining from doing that? Eating.
[11:54] Yeah. So there's, yeah.
[11:55] I mean, uh, the males have an evolutionary benefit because they pass genes on, I guess.
[12:03] For example, the sex act may be protracted when the female gets caught up in chewing her partner,
[12:10] which could increase the odds that he will fertilize her eggs.
[12:17] This, this has led to some very funny phraseology. This, uh, post-coital chomping
[12:23] cases that there's not words that I thought I was going to.
[12:27] Do we have like, we've probably got about 20 or 30, uh, different, uh, show titles we could.
[12:38] So it looks like an egg case will hatch between a hundred and 200 tiny mantises.
[12:46] Okay. Uh, but it looks like only about a third of them will reach maturity. Is that,
[12:53] is that mean that because they're being eaten or no, probably maturity means sexually, uh,
[12:59] maturity, right? I mean, they're dying. Yeah.
[13:03] Insects don't before they can procreate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Insects don't have a super
[13:10] high survival rate. I don't think it's a numbers game. It's a strength in numbers.
[13:15] So sexual cannibalism is also common in many families of spiders and scorpions
[13:21] and has important effects on population size, sex ratio, and even persistence.
[13:26] Well, I'm not looking up that phrase. Yeah, I could go back.
[13:31] Looks like a life cycle of praying mantis is about six months to a year.
[13:38] Wow. It seems slow for an insect.
[13:42] There. Did we, uh, did we answer all your questions?
[13:45] Yeah. No, that was amazing. Nice work team.
[13:48] Yeah. We didn't do too bad for something. We knew nothing.
[13:51] Nothing about wild speculation.
[13:56] Yeah. And they're, that is interesting. I think that the, like, uh, more genetic material is
[14:03] passed if they're eaten. That's interesting. I don't know why that would be, but, uh,
[14:10] I think it's outside of the scope of this, but, uh, for further reading, check your local Google.
[14:17] Okay. So are you, uh, promoting sexual cannibalism? Is that what you're promoting?
[14:23] No. Okay. No. Well, for our praying mantis listeners, uh, you do you.
[14:37] But for our male praying mantis listeners, well, you've been warned.
[14:41] Run. Yeah. Run. Yeah. Run. Get the heck out of here. Unless you're looking,
[14:48] if you want to pass, when you want to pass on your, your genetic material.
[14:51] When your, when your mom tells you that, uh, dad left for cigarettes and never came back,
[14:55] she's lying. All right. You're going to smoke with no head.
[15:02] Oh, there are a lot of, uh, title options, but that's pretty good.