I hadn’t seen a praying mantis in the yard all summer and was starting to think I might not see one at all this year. But late September is when those bugs get busy and do what mantises are gonna do.

While watering the plants on our deck last weekend, I hit the mother lode and the mantis drought ended. I spotted a rotund female mantis hunkered down amid one of the geraniums. As I went to grab a camera, I saw another female scrambling through the lawn next to rocked path near our carport. When I got back to the deck, I caught a glimpse of a male clinging to railing before noticing a pair about 10 inches away, staring back at me, locked in love’s sweet embrace.

In a span of less than five minutes, I saw five mantises. It was unprecedented.

However, upon further review, turns out I saw only four. The lone male I glimpsed was actually dead, its body savaged. A closer viewing revealed his head, most of his neck, and forelimbs were gone, about 25% of its body mass. I’ve read the female mantis will sometimes kill and consume her mate during or shortly after sowing the seeds of love, but this was the first time I’d actually seen evidence to that end. I couldn’t help but wonder if that portly mantis I saw in the geranium had eaten this railing mantis.

In 2016, researchers suggested this “sexual cannibalism” results in an increase of the number of eggs laid by the female and is an adaptive strategy for the male mantis, providing “direct material investment in offspring” (talk about understatement). The researchers also claimed that size (**sigh**) is a factor, writing “our discovery that male material allocation to eggs and ovaries increases with male body size.” They cited a second study that found males make up over 60% of the female diet during the breeding season. Sixty percent!

I can’t help but wonder instead of opting for the “one-and-done” approach, if the guys were just a bit more mindful and a bit more confident they could survive that first amorous fling with their counterparts. They could then mate again with a second partner, or even a third, and manage the same end, fecunditiously speaking, of course.

A few days after my mantis-palooza, Monica texted me a photo of male mantis in the garage. I wrote back that he was a virgin looking for love.

He still had his head.