Saturday 30 July 2016

Praying Mantis

This afternoon we had a silent visitor in our verandah. Sitting on our hand embridered settee, it was tiny in size, slender legs, long forearms, large head which rotates, all green in colour-- any guesses? You would think it is a grass hopper. Even we thought so. Till Neeta and I went closer. It was a 'praying mantis'.


Why the name 'praying mantis? Because their upright posture, while remaining stationary with fore arms folded, has led to the common name praying mantis. See the picture below:


According to WikipediaMantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species and about 430 genera in 15 families.   
Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. 
Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have fore legs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey.


They are mostly ambush predatorsThey normally live for about a 
year. See the life cycle diagram of a praying mantis courtesy 
pinterest.com.



Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates 
after copulation. Thank God this behaviour is limited only to the mantises.!

We had sighted another mantis in Feb-2015 called the 'Violin Mantis' as it resembles a violin in colour and shape. A picture from the previous story is reproduced below:


Hope you enjoyed viewing these tiny creatures. Do share your sightings with us.
Thanks for browsing

    Harsh-The-Ghumakkad/ 30th July 2016

6 comments:

  1. Interesting Sir.

    I have seen a few of these but did not know so much about mantises.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow....good to know about these insects....well explained too

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  3. Mantis Can Turn Their Heads a Full 180 Degrees. They are close relatives of termites and cockroaches.

    ReplyDelete