I was standing next to a kumquat bush, watching a lime butterfly hover around it, in the hope that it would land and lay its eggs on the underside of a leaf, when a movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned and had a look: oh, oh, what I had assumed to be a rather large elongated leaf was weaving back and forth slowly as if rocked by a gentle breeze. And it was no leaf!
It was emerald green, and had an evil triangular chinless face, studded with two enormous pea green eyes. It had assumed a posture of beseeching supplication, with its arms held out like a beggar asking for alms. But those arms were barbed with interlocking gintrap spikes and those eyes moved relentlessly. It was one of the terrors of the insect world: a praying mantis.
Even as I watched, a furry bee hummed close. The arms snapped out and snatched it, the gin-trap arms closing mercilessly over the insect! Immediately, the head bent low and the mantis chomped off its victim’s head and then proceeded to eat it the way you’d eat a bhutta. Tiny flies hovered foolishly in front of its eyes, but the mantis ignored them, focusing on its meal. At last it was done and dropped the dry husk of the bee and then wham! One of the flies just became dessert!
There are about 2,400 species of praying mantis in the world of which around 200 are found in India. Generally they prefer warm, temperate and tropical habitats and are usually clad in leaf greens or bark browns. Some are dead ringers for orchids and flowers, so foolish bees and flies fly straight into those terrible barbed arms in the hope of getting nectar and pollen. They’re related to termites and cockroaches and their earliest fossils date between 146 and 166 million years back. Between half an inch and 12 inches long, they are ferocious predators.
The ladies (of several species) have got themselves a fearsome reputation. They can’t fly so they hang around on leaves wafting their “come hither” pheromones in the air till a gentleman, usually smaller and who can fly, comes by. The gentleman is careful as he can be, and manages to get on to her back, clasping her lovingly. She in turn, will rotate her head and chomp his head right off even as his nether end continues to frantically do its duty. Some (ghoulish) scientists maintain that being suddenly headless enables the lower half to really freak out thus ensuring better fertilisation of the lady’s eggs because it is no longer connected to the part of the brain which regulates self-control. Other more sympathetic scientists say that this sort of cannibalism is usually only seen in mantises that are kept in captivity, that are being ogled at in their most private moments by paparazzi scientists giving themselves cheap thrills. It makes the lady real nervous so she chomps off her partner’s head (comfort food?)! Also, they maintain that only poorly nourished lady mantises go in for this sort of thing.
Well-fed (captive) Chinese mantises indulge in elaborate courtship dances before getting together. Yet another theory maintains that the lady does this so that she stocks up on (her late partner’s) protein, which is good for the quality of her eggs. A mating session may last up to three hours, though if the lady is feeding on her husband all the while, there’s probably very little of him left at the end of the honeymoon. At any rate, if the shotgun wedding is successful, the lady will lay between ten and 500 eggs in a frothy white case adhered to leaves or foliage that looks like a Styrofoam bag. The babies, which are called nymphs, are tiny replicas of their parents – and their first meal may be their very own brothers and sisters. Even mom may indulge in a baby buffet if she’s still around. Needless to say, very few nymphs survive this baptism by cannibalism!
The mantis is well-equipped for hunting. Besides its gintrap arms, it has huge stereoscopic eyes with a specialised area called the fovea which enables it to closely focus on and track movement from as many as 60 feet away and can leap with speed and precision. It is also able to rotate its head 180 degrees and look at you over its shoulder. Its movements are lightning fast, twice as fast as a housefly’s. Apart from insects, frogs and lizards, it may even go for small birds.
While mantises have been videoed grabbing hummingbirds coming to feeders, it has been maintained that this is unlikely to happen in the wild. But one list of the birds on the mantis’ menu included warblers, sunbirds, honeyeaters, flycatchers, vireos, and European robins! One species from Karnataka has even been observed fishing in small ponds! Mantises are themselves sought after by birds, lizards and particularly bats. Some have developed a hollow chamber in their abdomen which somehow enables them to detect the bats’ ultrasonic echo-locating squeaks and so take evasive action.
These charismatic cannibals have naturally caught our imagination, and have been kept as pets for eons. There are Chinese kung-fu fighting techniques based on the mantis’ movements, and the word mantis comes from the Greek “mantikos” meaning soothsayer or prophet, which is what the mantis’ typical pose resembles. Ancient people accorded them supernatural powers. Even we are developing robots inspired by the mantis’ powerful gripping forelegs so robots can climb steps, walk and grasp objects. But as one scientist mentioned, we should thank our stars that mantises are not as big as we are. We’d be in real trouble then!
Excerpted with permission from The Harmony of Bees and Other Charms of Creepy Crawlies, Ranjit Lal, Speaking Tiger Books.