Mantis attack!
By Bobbi A. Chukran
(Originally published online in SEEDS, Newsletter of Texas Gardener Magazine, Edited by Michael Bracken.
I was out in the garden, minding my own business, harvesting the last of the summer tomatoes, when ZAP! Something bit me on my middle finger. I screamed like a girl, and immediately thought of scorpions or spiders - or horrors, a rattlesnake! I looked down at the tomato bush, and there was the most ferocious, most puffed up, most BAD looking dude I had ever seen.
It was a praying mantis, quite a large one, and he was mad. I was stunned, because I had read over and over that mantises don't bite. I remembered back to when I was a kid, my mother would warn us not to touch any praying mantises that we saw. According to her, they were poisonous, and would basically eat us up in one bite. For years, I was afraid of the little buggers, until I started reading about beneficial insects. I decided that I'd leave them be to do what mantids do. Over the last month or so, I've seen dozens of the creatures in my garden, but I never dreamed that I would ever be attacked by one!
Being the researcher type I am (and just plain nosy), I came in, got a little sympathy from the Husband, washed my hands, and did a search on the 'net for praying mantis bites. I have to look up everything, being a curious sort. Turns out, some bug expert at Ohio State University says that they do not bite humans. But, get this, they do frequently "pinch hard."
Pinch hard? Good grief. My finger was throbbing, and all because a bug pinched me? I got out the magnifying glass and looked at my finger. There were no puncture wounds, and no blood. I did further reading, and sure enough, they do often draw blood, but their bite isn't harmful to humans. Well, that was good to know.
Their bites, however, are harmful to other insects, and this is what fascinates me about the little critters. They don't eat any vegetation, and they don't just pinch other insects. I can see this now... "Take that, you mosquito! I'll pinch you until you scream!" Oh no, with insects, they are much more ferocious, and this is what makes them beneficial in the garden. They are the fastest insect, apparently, and can zap a cricket from the air faster than that little guy can say his last prayers. Speaking of prayers, praying mantids are called that because of the way they fold their front legs into a prayer-like pose. So they grab the poor cricket with those sharp spiny legs, then immediately the mantis goes munching, eating the insect alive, and sometimes going for the head first. I didn't say that they were friendly insects - I said they were beneficial!
Mantids, apparently, are the only insects that can swivel their head all whicha-ways and look at you upside down. I suppose this is handy for catching flies and such, which they eat with relish (no, not pickle relish). They also eat mosquitoes, which I was very glad to hear, and almost all other insects, including themselves (ack) except ants. DRAT! Oh well, no beneficial is perfect, I guess.
Apparently, the mantids are so hungry that they will also attack almost anything that moves. They will even stalk small birds, such as hummingbirds, lizards and mice. Amazingly enough, they also groom themselves regularly, somewhat like a cat does. I've actually seen this for myself. They seem to lick those spiny front legs, then wipe them across their faces, twisting their heads this way and that. I suppose they have to keep those peepers clean in order to see their prey.
Mantids in the garden only live for a single season, and usually hatch out in the spring from egg cases that were formed in the fall. Like many other aspects of the mantids, their life cycle is also fascinating.
When a female mantid reaches the adult stage, she releases an odor that attracts a male mantis. The female is larger than the male because she is full of eggs. The male approaches the female (cautiously, I'd imagine), and climbs on her back. If he's lucky, he does his business and then escapes without having his head bitten off (literally).
The sperm deposited by the male is stored inside the female. She now proceeds to build the egg cases, the small rectangular brown crusty things that you'll sometimes see in the garden. She hangs upside down from a branch, and secretes sticky goo from her abdomen, which she whips into a froth with a pair of special appendages. This froth forms a cocoon with several chambers in it. She lays the eggs (sometimes as many as 300) in this cocoon, and fertilizes them with the stored sperm, a process that takes from three to five hours. The cocoon eventually hardens, and the female goes on to build more cocoons - between three to six. The mantises continue to mate and build cocoons until the winter frost kills them.
The eggs, protected in their cases, survive the winter to hatch the next spring, once it becomes warm.
And then they will station themselves in the garden, guarding the tomatoes, and will pinch you hard until you scream if you get your hand too close to one.
I saw a very large one today stationed behind the hummingbird feeder, acting quite nonchalant. In the past, I would have left him there, but now I know what he's up to! I found a stick - a VERY long stick - and poked at him until he moved far away from the feeder. Last thing I want to do is see one of my hummers being pinched to death by a praying mantis!
Although I've seen mantises since I was a young child, it took getting pinched by one to really notice them, and to discover what amazing creatures they are. But my finger still hurts!
Bobbi A. Chukran writes comedic fiction of all sorts from her home in Taylor, Texas. She tends a large garden there consisting of at least 82 antique rose bushes and lots of herbs and native plants. She tries to get along with intruders of the insect variety. She blogs about her projects at http://bobbichukran.blogspot.com.
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