Talk:Mantis/@comment-25086543-20141219215219/@comment-12776-20141220054640

Actually not, from this Cracked article.

Basically, so much of what we knew about praying mantis sex originally came from observing them in captivity. Entomologists soon realized that this was the exact opposite of how most mantises (or literally anything else in the world) would normally have sex, which is usually under cover, protected from the prying eyes of opportunistic predators and kinky voyeurs both. They finally figured out that this might be skewing their data in weird ways.

So when researchers set up tiny hidden cameras to catch mantises mating in more comfortable, natural surroundings, the male was attacked and eaten only once in 69 experiments, and only then because the female was really, really hungry -- it had nothing to do with the regular mating ritual.

Science march on, people.