History Main / MantisMatingMeal

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', when Po finds out that [[AdoptionAngst he is adopted]], he has a nightmare that his real parents replaced him with a radish. The Furious Five finds out, and when Viper tells Mantis that Po has daddy issues, Mantis says that he's lucky not to have had any problems with his father since his mother ate his head before he was born. Later in the film, when the heroes are surrounded by [[BigBad Lord Shen]]'s soldiers, Mantis tells the others that he never thought he'd die this way, as he always thought he'd meet a nice girl, they'd settle down, and then she'd eat his head.
** In [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda4 the fourth film]], wherein Mantis, and the rest of the Furious Five, is PutOnABus for most of the plot, his excuse is that he's gotten married offscreen, and is trying to keep his wife from biting his head off.

Subtrope of ConceiveAndKill, StockAnimalDiet, and SomewhereAnEntomologistIsCrying. See OutWithABang for other types of sex-related deaths. May overlap with FurryReminder or LiteralManeater. See also BlackWidow, which is named after another animal famous for the female eating the male.

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

-->What do you know about animals? Did you ever see a mongoose dance? A scorpion with sunstroke sting itself to death? Or a praying mantis eat her husband after making love?

* Don Dixon compares his FemmeFatale lover to this in the aptly named song "Praying Mantis".

* Implied in a brief sight gag in ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'' which has a mantis prostitute salting her client.

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis Mantises]] (Order ''Mantodea'') are a widely known group of predatory insect species with a very distinctive and iconic look. One of the bigger pop-cultural AnimalStereotypes about them is the females' propensity to [[ConceiveAndKill eat the males after intercourse]], making them the insect equivalent of a LiteralManeater. This stereotype is so well-known it's become a common fodder for fictional references to mantids. Often it's PlayedForLaughs as the punchline to a joke. For whatever reason the male is usually portrayed as totally fine with this.

The trope has ''some'' basis in reality, but while female mantises are known to sometimes eat their mates, [[SomewhereAnEntomologistIsCrying it is a lot rarer in real life than advertised]]. In fact, as much as 70% of the time the female does not eat the male (although this can vary wildly from species to species). Sexual cannibalism also occurs far more often in captivity than in the wild, typically because of variables that disturb the usual mating process such as the female not having been fed properly by the mantises' human keepers and the enclosed environment making it harder for the male to evade the female. On top of that, pop culture tends to claim that she eats her mate ''after'' the mating, when in reality it typically happens beforehand--typically a rejection of an unwanted suitor--and occasionally [[OutWithABang during the act]]. In fact, many mantis species are cannibalistic in general, males included; females just tend to be larger and thus more likely to feed on males than vice versa. Post-copulation devouring is in fact the ''least'' likely scenario and a male that successfully completes the breeding process is more than likely going to live to breed another day.

* ''Fanfic/DearDiary'': It's mentioned that female Leavanny (which are based off of mantises) have a habit of eating their mates after mating (although it's also noted that only about 30-40% of females engage in the practice). This is actually a fate which almost befalls Cenn (a Venipede at the time) before he killed her in self-defense and fled.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', when Po finds out that [[AdoptionAngst he is adopted]], he has a nightmare that his real parents replaced him with a radish. The Furious Five finds out, and when Viper tells Mantis that Po has daddy issues, Mantis says that he's lucky not to have had any problems with his father, since his mother ate his head before he was born. Later in the film, when the heroes are surrounded by [[BigBad Lord Shen]]'s soldiers, Mantis tells the others that he never thought he'd die this way, as he always thought he'd meet a nice girl, they'd settle down, and then she'd eat his head.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Rick creates a "LovePotion" for Morty out of a cocktail of animal DNA, when it proves to be too effective in the wrong way, Rick uses Mantis DNA in an attempt to reverse the process. The result are the infected becoming BodyHorror monsters that not only want to mate with Morty but mate with and then eat him.