I'll bite your head off.

Did you know that the name ‘mantis’ comes form the Greek ‘mantis’, meaning prophet or diviner? Did you know that the praying mantis is named for its humble folded claw position and not its ability to prey on creatures five times its size?

European mantis demonstrating its ability to hang sideways

Chris and I found this formidable looking insect on our screen door.  No doubt it was looking for crickets or other juicy tidbits. There are times, though, when the chosen tidbits do seem rather ambitious. I don’t know if this particular 2-3 inch predator could wrestle down and bite the head off a lizard, mouse, snake, hornet, tarantula or hummingbird, but the bigger ones can.

Before you decide to keep a praying mantis as a pet, think on that and know this: In some states it’s illegal to make a pet of a praying mantis, unless the mantis is foreign, i.e. Chinese or European. Both were introduced into the Northeastern U.S. about 80 years ago in the hopes of controlling crop-eating insects.

Back to the law: How can you know when you’re committing the crime of imprisoning a native?  The Chinese mantis is more brownish and has a green lateral stripe down the front wing, while the European sports a black ring on its leg like the one we found (see above).  As usual, Wikipedia puts it more scientifically: The Euro mantis is easily distinguished  by a black-ringed spot beneath the fore coxae.

Since there are at least 20 species native to the U.S., if you see one, best not try to domesticate it. When I was a kid, someone (might have been my mother) encouraged my little brother to keep a praying mantis trapped between the glass and the screen of his bedroom window—supposedly the perfect open air environment, i.e. cage, though some swear you can keep them without bars.

Occasionally, I watched my little brother fiddle with the odd looking creature, feed it live crickets, flies and spiders, hoping for some bonding.  I think it was supposed to earn him a merit badge, too—you know, the kind that Boy Scouts get.  If you’re hot to know more about scouting badges and insects, follow this link to Insect Life Merit Badge.

Speaking of which, the praying mantis is the only insect in the known world that can swivel its head from side to side in a 180 degree radius. If you want to see some very cool detailed shots of the mantis, click here.  Did I say shots? What I meant was brilliant new photographic techniques pioneered by David Yager, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland.

Yager photographs his mantids (praying mantises) dozens of times, “each shot focused a few ten-thousandths of an inch deeper than the last.  A computer melds those views into a single image that is simultaneously focused throughout the insect.”

Why does Yager do this?  So his students can explore the mantids’ inner ear. What’s so neat about an inner ear?  Of the 2300 different species of mantids, most share the highly peculiar trait of having just one ear, located smack dab in the middle of the chest.

Moving on.  The praying mantis is one of those insects that gives women a bad name:  That’s because the female is known to bite the head off her mate, but only during copulation. This doesn’t deter the male in any way, so they say; in fact, it speeds up his ejaculation process.  And how do we know that the sperm gets a healthy boost just as the male is decapitated?  Because male researchers find this sexual cannibalism so fascinating that they have devoted many hours to watching it happen.

Sad to say, the watching might be what causes it, though.  In confined laboratory conditions with bright lights in her face, the female is more likely to eat the male, possibly as a means of survival, possibly because the dude was not an adequate lover. Who knows? I choose to think she is killing the male out of the goodness of her heart, saving him from the degrading hopelessness of life long imprisonment.

Back to the mating process: Like many other females, the mantis secretes a pheromone to attract the male and let him know she’s ready.  Sometimes he approaches from the front and other times he makes a flying leap from behind, depending on his preference. During one experiment, a mantis couple was observed copulating for six hours.  Afterwards, her lover was allowed to fly away, its head unscathed, thereby proving my point that females let the good lovers live on.  If you want to see a mating pair of Chinese mantises, follow the link.  Don’t worry, I searched long and hard to find the happy ending; but I warn you, it was at the expense of a cricket.

Although the praying mantis is known for its cannibalistic mating process, there is good evidence that it only occurs 5-31% of the time. Dan Feldman, mantis voyeur extraordinaire, says this occurs most often because the female is hungry and a mate’s head provides an instant source of energy for her.  Why didn’t I think of that!

But there are other explanations: As we all know, natural mating takes place without a camera and bright lights, so rather than leaning over the tank to study their every move, one group of researchers left the two love-mantises alone and videotaped what happened.

By their own accounts, they were amazed. Out of thirty private matings, there was not one instance of decapitation. Instead, the camera filmed an elaborate courtship display, with both sexes performing a ritual dance, stroking each other with their antennae before finally uniting in ecstasy. “It really was a lovely display”, one fellow reported, leading to his conclusion that sexual cannibalism occurs most often only if the female is hungry.

Still another researcher, thinks the head eating also benefits the male, since he serves as a kind of vitamin injection for his offspring who will now be strong in a world where survival of the species is everything. Plus, he gets to pass on his own genes. Whoopee! The fact of the matter is, sexual cannibalism isn’t unheard of in nature. The male redback and orbweb spiders fall prey to their lovers, not to mention the infamous black widow.

Despite its mating habits or maybe because of, the praying mantis has historically been quite the star of mythology and folklore. More recently, it starred in the Hollywood production of the sci-fi thriller, The Deadly Mantis (1957), a giant female that hatched after a volcanic eruption melted its Arctic ootheca (encasement).  Hmmm, does anyone see a remake using global warming?

Back to the old folk tales: French people believed a praying mantis would point a lost child home and help wandering lovers. Lost Muslims looked for a mantis to point them towards Mecca.  Some Africans tribes thought it could raise the dead. Americans thought mantis juices blinded men and killed horses.  But the Chinese had it down: Nothing cured bedwetting better than roasted mantis eggs.  I don’t know exactly what they did what those eggs, but knowing the Chinese, they ate them pickled or in a stir-fry.

Speaking of eggs, after mating, the female lays up to 400 in batches that are enclosed in a tough, spongy encasement called an ootheca. You can find oothecas attached to fence posts, twigs and stems, or buried in the ground.  No matter what size the mantis is, the eggs are all the same size. Some vigilant females stand guard over their eggs until the nymphs (young) emerge, unless it takes all winter.

Generally speaking, though, the eggs hatch in 3 weeks to 6 months depending on the temperature and humidity. The young finally emerge from tiny holes in the casing, looking exactly like their parents, only smaller. Because the nymphs grow quickly, they molt (shed their skin) while maturing into adults—adults like the European mantis Chris and I found.

We’ve come full circle, folks. If you would like a greeting card to have and to hold, of the green praying mantis on a red Maple leaf, just ask. I have access to the Great Printer in Salt Lake City—you know, the one that works for Sendoutcards.

Happy tales,

Laura signing off