eli5- Why do insects and arachnids like a praying mantis and spiders kill the one they mate with?
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These are insects that are solitary predators, they don’t have friends or family, there is only threats that are larger and prey that is smaller.
When the time is right they have a mating instinct that compels them to find a male and procreate. Once that’s finished, the mating instinct is over and the male better scoot because he’s smaller and might be prey when the hunting instinct turns back on.
There’s not much deep thought going on here.
The animals that do this don’t only do it after mating, they’re frequent cannibals whenever they catch their own juveniles or smaller adults.
It’s common in some insects because the females are much larger than the males. The females must carry the eggs and need to be more survivable to carry on the species. The males don’t do much except get in and out real fast, so it’s not detrimental to the species if most of them eventually get cannibalized after passing on their genes.
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