How many kinds of bugs are there? An estimate last year, according to the journal Science, based on mathematical modelling and a major bug-counting effort in New Guinea, puts the number of arthropod species in the tropics – which account for most of the animal species in the world – at about 3.7 million. And they feature such varied sex lives as to make Casanova look like a rank amateur.
Of course, had the great seducer been a mantis rather than a Venetian, things might have come to an early end. Female mantis are prone to make a meal of their suitors following – sometimes even during – their copulation, commencing on their mate’s head. There is method in their cannibalistic madness. The male head contains the nerves that control copulation. No head, no nerves, nothing to stop the abdomen keeping up the good work.
