Praying Mantises

Alex Re

Hello, welcome to on wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Ray, on this podcast, we bring the wild to you, we take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week. And I guarantee you, you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. I can't wait for this week's episode, because I think many of us have seen these amazing creatures in the wild before but don't know much about them. They have some pretty awesome adaptations that I'm really excited to talk about. So you might want to put on some bug spray because we're heading into the bushes and trees to talk about an insect that packs a punch the praying mantis.

There are over 1800 species of praying mantises, and most of them can be found in tropical environments, although they can be found all over the world. Because there are so many different species, they're extremely diverse. Some species are nocturnal, meaning that they're active at night, while other species are diurnal, meaning that they're active during the day. Some species also have wings while others don't. And the largest species of Mantis is called the giant stick Mantis, which can get to be over seven inches long. But one feature that they pretty much all have in common is also what they're known best for. They have extremely enlarged four legs that make it look like they're praying, which is how they got their name. And if you're wondering what they're used for, don't worry because I'm going to talk about that later on in the episode. One thing that you'll also notice in a lot of different praying mantises is their elongated bodies, they kind of look like sticks. And because of this, you may be thinking that they're related to stick bugs, but they're actually a lot more closely related to cockroaches and termites. And this is where the biology teacher and me gets to come out and talk about a really cool concept in evolution called convergent evolution. convergent evolution is when two different species develop similar traits, because they live in similar habitats, not because it was passed down from a common ancestor. This is what happened with the praying mantises and the stick books, because they both live in environments where there are a lot of trees and sticks. This is probably why they both developed traits that make them look like a stick. This feature helps them blend in with their habitat so that it's extremely hard to see them. But they're really not that closely related. Another classic example of this is the wings of a bird and a bat. They both developed these wings separately and did not have a common ancestor that had wings. And have you ever heard the rumor that if you killed a praying mantis then you could get fined because they're endangered? Well, this isn't actually true, especially in the United States. Some of the most commonly seen mantises are the Carolina Mantis, and the Chinese Mantis. And neither of those species is endangered or ever has been endangered. But this isn't the worst rumor in the world because it probably saved a lot of praying mantises from getting killed by kids. We're going to take a break. And when we get back, I'm gonna start talking about how praying mantises hunt for their food.

In this week's episode of notable figures in science, I want to recognize Dr. Margaret Collins. As a child she was extremely intelligent, and was always interested in wildlife. And when she was only 14 years old, she began studying at West Virginia State University. She became the first black woman in the United States to be an entomologist, which is a person who studies insects, and her main area of focus was on termites, which is why many people refer to her as the termite lady. Not only did she contribute greatly to the field of entomology, but she was also a civil rights activist. She fought against racial inequality and even created a symposium that discussed inequality in science. Her work in science and civil rights activism played an extremely important role in making the world a better place, which is why it's so sad that so few people know about her. If you want to learn more about Dr. Collins or this series, you can visit on wildlife.org. Okay, we're back. Praying mantises eat a wide variety of foods, from insects to reptiles to even birds and other mantises. But for the most part, they're carnivorous, eating other animals and they usually like to eat the head of their prey first. Now it's time to talk about those enlarge front limbs that I mentioned earlier. Those four limbs are equipped with spines on the inside that make it easy to near their prey, and because their prey is usually agile, they ambush them by blending into their environment and then snatching up the prey with their four limbs extremely quickly. They can complete their strike in 60 milliseconds, which we would need a slow motion camera in order to watch. And once they catch their prey, they pretty much eat it alive. Some mantises are even pink because they like to hang out on flowers. An insect will think that this Mantis is just a part of the flower and land directly next to it. And at that point, it's already too late for them. But what sensors do they use in order to catch their prey and look for predators? Well, something you'll probably notice on a praying mantis are those huge eyes. They technically have five eyes, two large compound eyes and three eyes in between them. They can also turn their heads a full 180 degrees. And if you look closely at their eyes, you can see a black.in the middle, this black.is called a pseudo pupil. And what's weird about the pseudo pupil is that at whatever angle you're looking at, the praying mantis from the pseudo pupil will always be looking directly back at you. This is because it absorbs and reflects light off of the different parts of the eye. But that's seen in a lot of insects with compound eyes. What's really unique about the praying mantis is that they have stereopsis, which is a fancy way of saying that they have 3d vision just like you and me. But praying mantises are the only insects that have been found to have stereopsis and scientists have tested this type of vision in a hilarious way. They actually put 3d glasses on praying mantises, and showed them 3d videos. When they showed a 3d video of their prey, they actually jumped at it in order to catch it. This shows that praying mantis is most likely have really good depth perception. What they also found from this experiment is that their depth perception only works on moving objects. They can sense movement from around 60 feet away, which is really impressive for such a small animal. So if you're ever being chased by a 10 foot tall praying mantis just stay still because they can really only respond to your movement because they rely so much on their site. Most mantises are diurnal, meaning active during the day. But there are a few species that are more active at night, such as the bud wing Mantis. This opens the door for new predators that love to eat insects, bats. Many of you may know that bats use echolocation in order to find their prey, they send out high frequency sounds that bounce off of their environment and back at them so that they can get an idea of their surroundings in the dark. Well, some species of praying mantises have an ear on their abdomen, which allows them to pick up on the auditory signals that the bat sends out. And if they hear the bat coming, they're able to dive and fly out of the way in order to avoid getting eaten. And some studies have shown that when they were evading predators, they move unpredictably so that they're much harder to catch. But the interesting part about this is that in most species, only males have wings, while females don't. Which could have something to do with their meeting, which we're going to talk about right after the break.

Time for a trivia question. What does it mean when a species is endemic? A they spread diseases. B. They're found all over the world. See, they can only be found in a specific place, or D. They're endangered. The answer is C. For example, ring tailed lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they're only found in the wild in Madagascar.

Okay, we're back. So let's start talking about praying mantis mating. Praying mantises have some of the strangest mating behaviors in the animal kingdom. Remember how it was talking about how praying mantis is like to eat their food head first? Well, females like to do this with some of the males that they're mating with. Even though females can't fly, they're usually a lot bigger than the males, which means that the males need to be careful. In some species, about a quarter of the time that the males try to mate with females, the female will bite the head off of the male. Now a lot of people already know this, but it doesn't stop there. Sometimes males are able to continue meeting with the female even after their head has been bitten off. But why do females do this? Nobody really knows. Some scientists think that it's a way for the females to gain extra nutrients and others think that it could be to increase the amount of genetic diversity in her offspring. Praying mantises are cool, and they're really important to the ecosystem. assumes that they live in. They're the prey species for a lot of animals like birds and bats, while also being a predator to other insects. And they can actually be extremely beneficial for farms because they eat insects that destroy crops, and they control their populations. Unfortunately, they'll eat pretty much anything that moves, which could mean important pollinators like bees and hummingbirds. And oftentimes, seeing praying mantises in an ecosystem could mean that that ecosystem is really healthy. Although they're not endangered, their presence in an ecosystem is extremely crucial. But many insects all over the world are becoming threatened by human activity. And even though we're kind of grossed out by them, they're still really important. Here's some organizations that work to help insects and the habitats that they live in. You should really go check these out. There's the clear water Conservancy, the amateur entomologist society, and bug life. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explore the world of praying mantises. You can find the sources that we use for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference at on wildlife.org. You can also email us with any questions at on wildlife. dot podcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Instagram at en underscore wildlife or on tik tok at on wildlife. Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday for another awesome episode. And that's on wildlife.

Jess Avellino

You've been listening to on wildlife with Alex Ray brought to you every Wednesday.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai