Females prioritise foraging over mating and males prioritise mating over risk avoidance in virgin mantids

Motivational trade‐offs between reproduction and survival in two sexes of praying mantids may influence the occurrence of sexual cannibalism, a behaviour in which one mate consumes the other before, during or immediately after mating.

By using virgin mantids, we tested whether sexual cannibalism emerges opportunistically from contrasting priorities between the sexes: females prioritising foraging over mating and males prioritising mating over risk avoidance.

Through behavioural assays, we found that female mantids preferred attacking prey rather than conspecific males and unlikely treated males as typical prey.

Meanwhile, males exposed to sex pheromones showed reduced predation on prey. They also exhibited lower vigilance in the presence of either visual or chemical cues of mating opportunities, even under potential predation risk.

These findings suggest that sexual cannibalism in virgin animals might reflect opportunistic behavioural decisions affected by conflicting cues within each sex.