Used with permission.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 Animal Stereotypes about them is the females' propensity to eat the males after intercourse, making them the insect equivalent of a Literal Maneater. This stereotype is so well-known it's become common fodder for fictional references to mantids. Often it's Played for Laughs 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, 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 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.
Non-mantis-related examples should go on Conceive and Kill.
Subtrope of Conceive and Kill, Stock Animal Diet, and Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying. See Out with a Bang for other types of sex-related deaths. May overlap with Furry Reminder or Literal Maneater. See also Black Widow, which is named after another animal famous for the female eating the male. Fantastical depictions of this trope may involve a Slaying Mantis.
Examples:
- Interspecies Reviewers: The "Mantis Wife Ladies" brothel is staffed by mantis-women who find themselves following this trope. However, to ensure customer survival, a halfling makeup specialist is on-hand to carefully recreate the customers' heads out of cake.
- Inuyasha: Miroku is once honey trapped by a praying mantis demon that pretends to be a princess of a destroyed state before attempting to eat him. He destroys her with his Wind Tunnel, but the barbs on her forearms catch the edges of the hole and injure it, causing the hole to widen.
- Maya the Bee: Comes up in an episode of the anime where Maya's friends are being harassed by a hungry male mantis. Maya manages to bring in a second mantis, the first one's wife as it happens, who is furious at her husband for disappearing on her before she could eat him. The frightened male mantis flies off in a panic as the female chases after him, demanding he let her eat him.
- The fourth episode of Black Cat Detective have the police led by Black Cat investigating a crime scene in an insect community where a young praying mantis is brutally murdered on his wedding night, and the series' recurring villain, the One-Eared Mouse who's reported stealing food from the insects, is a prime suspect. But it turns out One-Ear isn't the culprit, said mantis was actually killed and devoured by his bride.
- Dear Diary: It's mentioned that female Leavanny (which are based on 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 that almost befalls Cenn (a Venipede at the time) before he killed her in self-defense and fled.
- Kung Fu Panda:
- Kung Fu Panda 2: When Po finds out that 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 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.
- Kung Fu Panda 4: Mantis, and the rest of the Furious Five, is Put on a Bus 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.
- Mentioned by Honey Ryder in Dr. No as part of her attempted justification for the existence of a dragon (which turns out to be a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax):
Honey: 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?
Bond: I admit that I haven't.
Honey: Well, I have. - Nine Months: Sam has nightmares about his girlfriend Rebecca turning into a mantis and eating him, as a metaphor for his anxieties about becoming a dad and all the changes that he'd have to make to his lifestyle.
"THEY EAT THE FATHER! THEY EAT THE FATHER!"
- Discussed in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. A girl introduces herself to a boy, and her first conversation consists of explaining how praying mantises eat their mates during sex.
- The Big Bang Theory: Discussed on "The Date Night Variable" when a drunk Amy compares Sheldon to a sexy praying mantis.
Amy: You know what's wonderful about the praying mantis, they devour their mate.
Sheldon: Your point being?
Amy: [undoes the top button of her blouse] Dessert is served.
Sheldon: I just had cobbler. - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The She-Mantis is the Monster of the Week in "Teacher's Pet". She is a mantis monster who takes the form of a human teacher in order to find male human virgins to mate with. During the mating process, she bites the male's head off.
- Criminal Minds reveals that the UnSub of the two-parter "The Inspiration" and "The Inspired" is partially driven to kill women because he thinks that human women are an extension of this.
- The trope is frequent fodder for cartoons in The New Yorker:
- From Joe Dator, the female mantis tells the male she's going to have him help her assemble some shelves between sex and killing him.
- Jason Chatfield once posted an uncaptioned picture of two male mantises at a cafe, one of whom was missing his head, and let the readers submit captions. For example:
"So, does she have a sister?"
- From Joe Dator
- Don Dixon compares his Femme Fatale lover to this in the aptly named song "Praying Mantis".
- A Bizarro strip features two praying mantises having tea. One comments that her husband is disagreeing with her; the other suggests an antacid.
- A strip from The Far Side features a praying mantis talking to her neighbor, apparently accusing her of cheating with her husband.
"I don't know what you're insinuating, Jane. I haven't seen Harold all day. Besides, surely you know that I would only devour my own husband."
- In one Off the Mark comic, a mantis is annoyed that his partner wants to watch a Chick Flick titled Eat His Brain!
- This Doc Rat comic, where a pair of mantises are asked what they look for in a relationship. No prize for predicting the punchline.
- And then again here, with a picture of a headless father mistaken for bad camerawork.
- And then again here,
- In an Oglaf comic, a male mantis suitor starts arguing with a female mantis about the odds of her eating him during sex. He eventually bargains her down to 1 in 20, but she still eats him. After all, five percent isn't "impossible".
- In Animal Behaviour, Cheryl the Praying Mantis laments her tendency to eat her mates during sex has left her a lonely and stressed single mother.
- Implied in a brief sight gag in BoJack Horseman which has a mantis prostitute salting her client.
- In the Family Guy episode "Road to Rupert", during a Cutaway Gag of a guy having had sex with Sharon Stone, she finishes things by eating his head in a manner akin to this trope.
- In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "The Crawling Niceness", Billy walks in on Mandy and Grim watching a documentary about mantises, showing the female mantis chewing on her mate's eye. It is one of those times that even Mandy is seen staring aghast at the sight.
- Rick and Morty: Rick creates a "Love Potion" 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 is the infected becoming Body Horror monsters that not only want to mate with Morty but mate with and then eat him.
- A skit in Robot Chicken had a bunch of mantises mocking another mantis for being a virgin, blatantly lying about his Girlfriend in Canada he's had sex with because he's still alive telling them about it.
- In Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Zorak (a giant mantis) mentions that his mom ate her dad, and he himself ate his little cousin as he mentions (and apologizes) it during a family reunion. His uncles don't seem to have a grudge, though.
- In the Turbo F.A.S.T. episode "Love Hurts", this nearly happens to Turbo when he gets engaged to a mantis princess and sees portraits of her and her previous mates post-head-eating. Fortunately for him, another mantis volunteers in the end.
