In the natural history of mate munching, it is not only the praying mantis female who has a peculiarly murderous post-coital habit of eating the male's head.
The black widow spider has the same, one might say, 'taste' in males, which is no doubt how the species earned its name.
And if you were wondering, as you cursed, whether the mosquito that bit you the other night was a he or she, the answer is simple.
Males do not even like blood, apparently preferring a more vegetarian supper of ripe fruit.
That there is no metaphorical glass ceiling holding back the fierce female forces of the insect world is just one of the interesting threads of the new Megabugs show which has opened at the Science Museum, a follow-up to the Prehistoric Giants.
Entering the show is like going into a Disney forest: little papier-mache mushrooms growing out of the ground, trees, fallen plaster logs.
But what is this . . . the noises are getting louder, the fungi are bigger and bigger and . . . gulp. Honey, someone's shrunk the kids and the natural wildlife is looking awfully rapacious.
