15 interesting facts about praying mantises

Praying Mantises — fairly ancient insects. They gained fame thanks to their unusual appearance and completely fearless disposition — a hungry praying mantis will attack without hesitation any enemy it can defeat and eat, while avoiding collisions that can become fatal for it.

Interesting facts about praying mantises

1. Mantises — the only insects whose head rotates in different directions in the same way as a person.
2. They feed mainly on small insects, but on occasion they can also bite a lizard, a frog or even a small snake. Mantis spiked forelimbs — a terrible weapon.
3. The largest mantises reach a height of 10-12 centimeters.
4. The praying mantis is able to eat and digest almost anything without harm to itself. These insects attack like a black widow — deadly poisonous spider, and ladybugs, which are themselves very toxic.
5. The female praying mantis often kills and eats the male after mating. By the way, this also happens with scorpions (interesting facts about scorpions).
6. There are more than two thousand species of praying mantises in the world.
7. The ancient Egyptians worshiped praying mantises and even mummified them like pharaohs.
8. In some countries of Central Asia, people in the countryside keep praying mantises to kill insect pests (interesting facts about insects).
9. Mantises — masters of disguise, and their colors always match the main color scheme of the area in which they live.
10. Cannibalism among these insects — Not unusual. Two hungry males will most likely attack each other, and the winner will eat the loser.
11. Mantises prefer to eat their victims alive. They will not eat dead prey, even if they are starving.
12. Female praying mantises are always larger than males, and therefore they cannot fly — wings are weak. And males may well fly from branch to branch.
13. A characteristic pose in which praying mantises are most often photographed (forelimbs raised up) — a signal that the insect is ready to attack.
14. The eggs laid by the female praying mantis are so well protected that they are not afraid of either frost or toxic chemicals.
15. None of the species of praying mantis is dangerous for humans, but if you make him angry, he can bite hard — it will hurt.