Praying Mantis Boxing Match

Well today was Employee Appreciation Day, and since I am now officially a University of Utah Employee I was able to attend. (I will have to post a blog about now being an employee with the school at another time!) Anyways I went to the fun day, I got some free pizza, ice cream etc and was on my way back to the office I work at when I came across this. Now I only had my camera phone so I wish I could have got a better picture but I was horrified to get too close, I didn't want the thing jumping on me. First off you can't tell in the picture but this Praying Mantis was the BIGGEST thing I have ever seen. Like bigger then my hand! It was so big, it is what first caught my attention.... THEN I noticed the fact that it had just killed another Praying Mantis! Seems silly but this was the craziest cool thing I have seen in awhile! I am sad I missed the fight, now that would have been entertaining. Anyways it got me wondering over to good old Wikipedia for some info...enjoy.

(Pay attention to the cannibalism part! Wish I had time to wait around and see if it ate its little Praying Mantis friend!)

Wikipedia gave me this description...

Praying Mantises are exclusively predatory. Larger species have been known to prey on small lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, and even rodents, basically anything that it can successfully capture and devour. Most species are known to engage in cannibalism. The majority of mantises are ambush predators, waiting for prey to stray too near. The mantis then lashes out at remarkable speed. Some ground and bark species, however, pursue their prey rather quickly. Prey items are caught and held securely with grasping, spiked forelegs ("raptorial legs"); the first thoracic segment, the prothorax, is commonly elongated and flexibly articulated, allowing for greater range of movement of the front limbs while the remainder of the body remains more or less immobile. The articulation of the head is also remarkably flexible, permitting nearly 300 degrees of movement in some species, allowing for a great range of vision (their compound eyes have a large binocular field of vision) without having to move the remainder of the body. As their hunting relies heavily on vision, they are primarily diurnal, but many species will fly at night.

So all of this got me googling different Praying Mantis information and found this amazing picture...

Yup that is a humming bird, I even watched a video on You Tube of a female and male Praying Mantis mating and then right after she EATS HIM! these insects are crazy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYp_Xi4AtAQ