2013-05-08
Explanation
The comic opens with two praying mantises mating enthusiastically. Afterward, the female tells the male to eat her head. He's confused -- "What? Eat your head?" She insists: "Eat my head!" When he asks why, she says "It'll be so hot," and she agrees with "Oh God yes." The final panel cuts to a real world where a mother, having observed this scene in a praying mantis kit, tells her daughter "Let's get you an ant farm" instead.
The joke plays on the well-known fact that female praying mantises sometimes eat the male's head during or after mating. The comic inverts this by having the female ask the male to eat her head, and reframes the cannibalistic behavior not as predatory instinct but as a sexual kink -- the mantises are treating decapitation as an exciting bedroom activity rather than a biological imperative. The final panel provides the second punchline: a mother who bought her daughter a praying mantis kit as an educational pet is now horrified by what the mantises are doing (and saying, in the comic's world), and quickly decides to redirect to the much more wholesome ant farm. It combines biology humor with the comedy of parents trying to shield children from the more disturbing aspects of nature.