Biology 103
2002 First Paper
On Serendip
The Female Praying Mantis: Sexual Predator or Misunderstood
Michele Doughty
"Placing them in the same jar, the male, in alarm, endeavoured to
escape. In a few minutes the female succeeded in grasping him. She
first bit off his front tarsus, and consumed the tibia and femur. Next
she gnawed out his left eye...it seems to be only by accident that a
male ever escapes alive from the embraces of his partner" Leland Ossian
Howard, Science, 1886. (7)