Mantis: The Ultimate Assassin

[Music] mantises are some of the most alien looking animals on earth they're also one of the most effective predators but how have these slow-moving weirdos manage to conquer almost every continent on earth their main weapon is the element of surprise these are the mantises hi i'm danielle dufoe and you're watching animal logic [Music] mantises are a diverse order of insects with 2 400 species they come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes their closest relatives are the cockroaches and like their cousins mantises are found all over the world in tropical and temperate climates their success comes from a simple hunting strategy wait for prey to get within striking range and then impale them with their spiked limbs to do this effectively they have three crucial adaptations the first one is their eyes mantises have some of the best vision among all invertebrates their compound eyes are made of thousands of hexagonal photoreceptor clusters called almatidia large species can have over ten thousand almatidia each amitidia creates a very tiny image like a pixel on a computer screen their brains then combine all the pixels to make up a full image mantises seem to always be staring at you with their tiny beady pupils and they are staring at you but their pupils have nothing to do with it in fact the black dots on their eyes are not even pupils they're called pseudo-pupils and they're the almatidia that absorb the light coming head-on what makes their vision superior to almost all invertebrates is their 3d vision just like in humans their two eyes create slightly different images and their brains put them together to create depth perception scientists found this out by putting tiny 3d glasses on them and running the same tests they used to test depth perception in humans mantises were able to pick up changes in depth that would be imperceptible to us this is how they know exactly when to strike to catch their prey their vision is so simple yet so accurate that engineers are studying their eyes to build 3d cameras the second tool in their arsenal is their spiked limbs maybe the most iconic part of the mantis's anatomy is their folded four limbs they give the mantis their common name praying mantis the most common mantis species is also known as mantis religiosa the religious mantis but it is their prey who should be praying when a mantis grasps its prey it impales it with sharp spikes on its femur and tibia the more the prey struggles the deeper the spikes penetrate once prey has been secured they begin to eat they don't even need to kill it first they'll just eat it alive [Music] that's one way to eat your food while it's still fresh this strategy helps them catch anything from small insects to tarantulas there have even been reports of mantises catching birds and fish so why are so many animals getting that close to such a deadly predator the answer is their third adaptation [Music] mimicry who's that [Music] thousands of mantises have evolved to look like objects in their environment this serves the dual purpose of hiding from their predators and prey some look like vegetation there are dead leaf mantises that look like natural debris the stick mantises look like twigs leaf mantises resemble fresh leaves bark mantises blend in with the trees and ghost mantises look like a bouquet of collard greens they even rock from side to side to imitate leaves swaying in the wind you could almost have a whole tree made out of mantises and you wouldn't even know it [Music] the most beautiful mantises in the world are the flower mantises particularly the orchid mantis these mantises look like orchid flowers and attract insects looking for a lick of pollen this is called aggressive mimicry and the results can be stunning equally effective are the ant mantises [Music] unlike mantises ants have chemical defenses and taste pretty bad which makes them unappealing to predators young ant mantises mimic ants to deter predators though as they grow they look less and less like ants and more like regular mantises when hiding doesn't work they go on the offensive when threatened mantises open their forelimbs to appear larger some fan their wings and several species have patterns or shapes to scare away predators they're famously brave and are known to stand up to dogs and cats hundreds of times larger than them blow by the praying mantis lightning fast looks pretty surprised coming in again he looks disoriented [Music] oh very nice looked like a right hook and now the praying man is just sort of fades look at him fading he's fainting and taking another couple of swings but he's he's done the damage and now friday trying desperately to find his adversary he's completely very difficult and the bell ends around they have a reputation for being cannibalistic but that's just bad science scientists observed that in lab conditions female mantises sometimes ate their male counterparts what they failed to mention was that they had been starved for days so sometimes they do eat their mates but only when necessary for survival [Music] one of the coolest mantis breeding behaviors is found in the brunner's stick mantis they're independent girls who don't need no man tis in fact no males of that species have ever been found and they're thought to reproduce asexually vision is one of the greatest tools of the mantis but at night they have to rely on their other senses some mantises can hear with their belly some species such as the budwig mantis can detect high frequency noises using specialized organs in their abdomen this helps them detect bats if they're on a tree and a bat approaches they jump down to the relative safety of the ground so what should i talk about next please let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of animal logic every other week thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 659,763

Rating: 4.9238005 out of 5

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, show, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, facts, animalsfacts, mantis, kung fu, flower mantis, mimic, mimicry, orchid mantis, praying mantis, alien, mantis vs bulldozer, mantis vs dog, mantis eats, mantis eating, mantis hunting, mantis eats mate, true facts, top tier, mantis eats frog, mantis eats bird, male, female, mates, bites, bitten, bit, camouflage, david attenborough, bbc, preying, change color, pets, insect, predator, bug, mantis fly

Id: aMdrI_zCrjo

Length: 9min 2sec (542 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019

Reddit Comments

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