The egg mass is then carried by the front thoracic appendages and constantly cleaned and turned until they hatch. The female refrains from eating anything during the brooding process. In many mantis shrimps the male stands guard over the female before spawning, and only leaves to find another cavity when the female spawns. Finally, egg hatching occurs when the currents are strong enough to transport the larvae away from the shallow reefs or intertidal habitats of the adults. In the smasher Gonodactylus bredini , both males and females may search for mates, although in the majority of times it is the male who does the searching.
Females tend to select for males who are larger than themselves when a guest comes a-courting.
After courtship, the male mates repeatedly with the female and then defends her and the nest cavity until the females extrudes her eggs. The male then leaves to search for a new cavity, probably because the old cavity may be too small to hold both male and female, as well as the eggs. Competition for available living cavities is ferocious in this case. Females mate repeatedly with males of any size, and they can store the sperm for many months after mating. On their end, males do not go to the trouble of guarding females but repeatedly wander around in search of more females.