The Praying Mantis

By Al Lowe
Contributor

This is one of the largest, and certainly one of the fiercest looking insects we have. It is also one of our very beneficial insects. It is a predator, and its major food consists of other insects, along with small frogs, salamanders and so on once in a while.
There are three mantids in North America. One, the Carolina Mantid, is found only in the south. The large brownish ones are the Chinese Mantids, up to four inches in length. The one which you are most likely to see is the Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa). It is another import, this time from Europe.
All of them look very much alike. They are long narrow insects, fairly skinny except for a somewhat swollen abdomen. The front legs have been modified a great deal. Instead of being used for walking, they are held upright against the body in that typically prayerful attitude. They are heavily covered with sharp spines, and are used for catching and holding food.
The Mantis' head is dominated by two huge bulging eyes. This insect can turn its head through more than 180 degrees without moving its body, so it can see a meal coming from any direction. It usually lies in wait for its food. It may sit on a twig, or on a cornstalk, completely motionless, for hours. When an unsuspecting grasshopper comes along, those front legs flash out with blurring speed, and fold down on the prey like a pair of spiny jack knife blades. The Mantis then eats its meal in the same way you eat a cob of corn. Everything goes down but the wings.
Like quite a number of other insects, the Praying Mantis is cannibalistic. After all the fun and games of mating are over, the female promptly eats the male. He has fulfilled his purpose in life, and now his only value is to provide a good meal. The female lays her eggs in a big mass of gummy material which she whips into a sort of froth. When the young come out, they do so through little trap door devices.
When the young mantids hatch, they don't become caterpillars or anything like that. They look very much like the adults, but they don't have wings.
As they grow, they moult out of their skins, and develop wings little by little. Grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches and others belong to the same order as do the mantids, order Orthoptera. They all grow in the same way.
The non-native mantids were introduced into North America at about the turn of the century. It was thought that they might by helpful in keeping down such harmful insects as grasshoppers, crickets and the like. They do consume a lot, but their numbers have never become large enough, at least in our northern climate, to effectively control these agricultural pests.