eli5- Why do insects and arachnids like a praying mantis and spiders kill the one they mate with?
In: 499
The real answer is we don’t- and can’t- know *why* anything is the way it is in nature (barring things we have done to nature that has a motive behind it)
All we know is that nothing about that situation has had an effect on breeding strong enough for the species to fail at continuing on.
We’re pretty sure that insects don’t have internal monologs like we do, spending time debating choices and weighing consequences, so there might just not be a ‘why’ as much as a ‘how likely this action is over the other possible actions’.
That’s pretty unsatisfying, I know, but you might as well start getting used it it – “we don’t really know why” is the answer to almost every question that doesn’t involve a person you can ask for a motive.
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