Insects displaying common sense

ScienceDaily: Male Praying Mantids Prefer Not To Be Victims Of Sexual Cannibalism

Gotta love a headline like that. From the article:

Lelito and Brown thus varied female hunger and physical orientation in order to assess how male mantids respond to variation in the risk of cannibalism. They found that males responded to greater risk by slowing their approach, increasing courtship behavior, and mounting from a greater – and possibly safer – distance.

"This shows that male mantids actively assess variation in risk and change their behavior to reduce the chance of being cannibalized," explains Brown. "Males are clearly not complicit, and the act of sexual cannibalism in praying mantids is an example of extreme conflict between the sexes."

Good to know.