Science Proves Femme Fatale Theory With Cannibalistic Mantises
The female praying mantis is not to be messed with.
Scientist Katherine Barry, of Australia’s Macquarie University, studied the female false garden mantis, which, in restrictive circumstances, uses mating signals to lure males in under sexual pretenses—and then eats them.
In the study, Barry created four groups of female mantises and gave each a different supply of food, ranging from very little to a lot. Male mantises were free to choose whoever they wanted to mate with. Barry assumed that males would flock to the well-fed and presumably most fertile set. Instead, the mantises that were fed a “very poor’’ diet attracted the most mates.
How? Barry believes the hungrier mantises released more pheromones to attract mates and therefore food—a chemically-induced ploy that resulted in cannibalism once the sexes were mixed, giving a whole new meaning of the word “hangry.’’ As a result, the cannibalistic females were found to be even better suited for reproduction following their, um, feast.
Barry’s study, published in Royal Society’s Proceedings B, supports the Femme Fatale hypothesis and is the first of its kind. In short, it provides empirical evidence of intended deception through sexuality for survival. More informally, the study’s hungry female mantises join the ranks of this year’s superlative feminist creatures, with Lydia the possibly asexually reproductive shark, and Tara: Hero Cat.
Surely the male mantises will, at some point, wise up to the fairer sex’s machinations, right? Probably not. In an interview with the BBC, Barry said that the male mantis, to her knowledge, has yet to develop a defense against those wily lady killers.
No one said Darwinism was fair.
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