eli5- Why do insects and arachnids like a praying mantis and spiders kill the one they mate with?

Question

eli5- Why do insects and arachnids like a praying mantis and spiders kill the one they mate with?

In: 499

Answer 1

Note that, at least in the case of praying mantises, they do not *necessarily* kill their mate.

What happens is that *in captivity* they tend to do so, also sometimes in the wild. It’s thought that underfed or starving females do eat the males, but there may be other stresses in laboratory conditions.

We just assumed that behavior happened in the wild too (it can, but not consistently), because even scientists are subject to human flaws.