"Proof"

I was in the garden early this morning and spied something that confused me. It was a mantis, the Carolina mantis to be exact, our native species. Much smaller in stature, generally with a gray, mottled camouflage. Probably half of the size of the larger, green, Chinese mantis. Their damage in the garden is not as wholesale, they don't eat as many butterflies (from my observations).

As it turns out, the female mantis has just finished mating with a male, the poor guy still on her back, but he is lacking a head.