Males, picture this scene. Pheromones have triggered the let’s-have-sex instinct, but nature has created a female several times your size and, instinctively, you know an abundance of caution is necessary.
After looking at her sharp weapons, you decide to approach from behind. Lacking any sense of romance, you leap on her back, deliver the sperm … and lose your head.
Literally.
Perhaps you should have brought chocolates to take the edge off her appetite.
Welcome to the violent world of the praying mantis, which has one of the most alien-looking life forms on land: triangular head that rotates 180 degrees; large compound eyes (and three simple ones); and forelegs lined with sharp spikes that often rest in prayer-like repose.
Mantis religiosa, the European species, caught a ride aboard a ship around 1800 and migrated West. The other two common species in the U.S. are the Chinese mantis (up to 5-6 inches, sold commercially), and the Carolina mantis.
Most mantids are similar: long thin body, stick-like waist, hard exoskeleton; four spindly hind legs that can be regenerated during molting and two super-size forelimbs; wings (some species’ females are wingless); shades of tan or green.
About 60 percent of the 1,800 species have an ear that’s tuned to ultrasonic frequencies in the range of bat echolocation. If the mantis is in flight (when its wings are fully developed, it’s an adult) and hears the bat, its defense mechanism is erratic flight.
There’s little escape for a mantis’ prey. When a meal wanders near, a mantis pulls off one of the fastest muscle movements in the animal kingdom, striking with its forelimbs in a move measured in milliseconds.
The praying mantis chews on the neck for incapacitation purposes, then starts with the head as an appetizer. A cricket might disappear in less than two minutes.
After the meal, it will groom its head and forelimbs in a catlike fashion. Then the spines can fold jackknifelike into the forelimbs’ grooves.
For all of its predatory skills, a mantis lives but one season, overwintering in an egg case with 50-400 siblings, emerging as nymphs (often eating each other), going through several molts on its way to adulthood, then dying in cold weather.
Mantids need at least a couple of weeks of 75-degree weather. Normally that wouldn’t happen until July or August in our area, which limits the population. Gardeners often buy egg cases, hatch them indoors, and release them into the gardens, so there’s always a chance that some will survive to lay eggs.
The solitary insects will eat their way indiscriminately through the garden, so they’ll eat your “good” insects as well as your “bad” ones. Mantids will eat butterflies, wasps and bees; and the largest kill small frogs, mice and birds.
A few years ago a man in North Carolina apparently photographed a praying mantis with a ruby-throated hummingbird that it had just caught and killed by tearing open its throat.
As cooler weather approaches, the female creates eggs and sends out her pheromones. While mantids are quick with their weapons, mating might take up to six hours. Not every male loses its head. Depending on the study, 5 percent to 30 percent are decapitated, some in mid-act. In one species, head removal is a necessary part of mating.
The female stores the sperm while whipping a sticky secreted substance into a froth for a paperlike cocoon for her eggs before delivering the sperm.
Next spring, the cycle continues.
In the U.S., people once thought a praying mantis could blind men and kill farm animals. Now we know differently, although scientists still argue whether a praying mantis is closer to a cockroach or a cricket.
From a fascination standpoint, it doesn’t matter.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
