Avid Kelowna gardener Heather Painchaud had front row seats to a pair of mantids mating in her garden earlier this week.

The female bit the head off the male and ate it while her eggs were being fertilized.

“We have praying mantis all over the garden and find them almost daily,” she told iNFOnews.ca

“This was a particularly gross encounter. Apparently, they only eat their mate when they’re stressed.”

Found throughout the Thompson-Okanagan region, praying mantids never fail to amuse onlookers with their alien-like appearance and fascinating behaviours. They have triangular heads and widely spaced eyes and giant forelegs they use to seize prey. The prayer-like position of their folded forelegs has given them the common name praying mantis.

There are two species of mantid found in the province.

The European mantis was introduced to New York State from Europe in 1899 and spread into parts of Canada. It was later introduced in the Okanagan in an effort to control grasshoppers.

The ground mantid is the only native species in the country and can only be found in the dry grasslands of the South Okanagan.

The insects are carnivorous and mostly prey on arthropods including insects, spiders and centipedes. Mantids are camouflaged and ambush hunters that wait motionless for the right to time to seize a victim which they eat alive, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

They mate as aggressively as they hunt.

The female mantids eat the males before, during and after copulation. Male mantids have evolved to be cautious while mating, approaching females slowly and freezing when she moves, then running away after mating.

Painchaud might get to see the deadly display again.

“We’ve already seen mantis eggs sacks in the garden,” she said. “They’ll hatch hundreds of babies in the spring.”

Painchaud is a prolific food blogger. Go here to visit her website, Homemade Heather.