Does this mean that the tenderest and most succulent morsels are chosen?
No, for the belly is certainly more juicy; and the Empusa refuses it, though she eats up her House-fly to the last particle.

It is a strategy of war.

I am again in the presence of a neck-specialist as expert as the Mantis herself in the art of swiftly slaying a victim that struggles and, in struggling, spoils the meal.
Once warned, I soon perceive that the game, be it Fly, Locust, Grasshopper, or Butterfly, is always struck in the neck, from behind.
The first bite is aimed at the point containing the cervical ganglia and produces sudden death or immobility.

Complete inertia will leave the consumer in peace, the essential condition of every satisfactory repast.
The Devilkin, therefore, frail though she be, possesses the secret of immediately destroying the resistance of her prey.

She bites at the back of the neck first, in order to give the finishing stroke.