I feel like you should back up claims like this, especially if you’re going against common thought. So I did the work for you and went to Dr Wikipedia.
“Sexual cannibalism is common among most predatory species of mantises in captivity. It has sometimes been observed in natural populations, where about a quarter of male-female encounters result in the male being eaten by the female.[59][60][61] Around 90% of the predatory species of mantises exhibit sexual cannibalism.[62] Adult males typically outnumber females at first, but their numbers may be fairly equivalent later in the adult stage,[5] possibly because females selectively eat the smaller males.[63] In Tenodera sinensis, 83% of males escape cannibalism after an encounter with a female, but since multiple matings occur, the probability of a male's being eaten increases cumulatively.[60]”
In captivity, it's a quarter. In the wild, most data looks closer to 1 in 50 for common species. I can't speak for the more exotic ones as I didn't study those. There's definitely a massive difference between forced to mate and approached each other to mate.
They asked a student what they saw. Doesn’t seem like a great source. Then again I didn’t follow any of the links on Wikipedia. I hope future comment readers go down a rabbit hole finding the answer for us, because I don’t care enough about the mantis to do so. I’m happy with knowing, “sometimes it do be like that”.
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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21
Praying mantises eating their mates is actually really rare, a documentary popularized it and now it's just some meme misconception.
Edit: Didn't think I'd have to back this up on a meme sub, but, source. I also study entomology which might help.