- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ever seen a pregnant praying mantis?
Someone on wikianswers.com asked the question: "What does a pregnant praying mantis look like?"
The question drew only one response: "Big and fat."
Well, at least the answer wasn't "Big, old and fat!"
Praying mantids, known as ambush predators because they lie in wait for their prey, nail unsuspecting honey bees, sweat bees, flies, butterflies and assorted other insects. The female mantids, in particular, gorge as they prepare their bodies for egg laying.
Later this year or next spring, if you're lucky, you'll see an egg case hanging from a twig, leaf or fence. Depending on the species, each case contains about 100 to 200 mantises. When they emerge, they're so hungry that they'll eat one another. Brother and sister. Sister and brother. Cannibalism.
This morning this quite pregnant--and quite irritated--"lady in waiting" emerged from the shadows of a salvia at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
On a human hand, she appeared perfectly camouflaged.
Then, she climbed off and disappeared back into the salvia.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The photo just begs for a caption.
The praying mantis, with a female sweat bee grasped in its spiked forelegs, suddenly turns its head to look at the photographer.
Actually, three photographers: Davis insect photographers/bee enthusiasts Allan Jones and Gary Zamzow and I. We were shooting images in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
Jones, admiring the first image (below), commented "I love the way the mantis has set breakfast aside to stare directly at you." With that, Jones served up three captions:
"Oh, is that your bee?"
"What are you looking at?"
"Threat or prey?"
Meanwhile, we were obviously interrupting the praying mantid's bee breakfast.
"The female sweat bee is carrying some pollen she toiled to provide for her young," said native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "The mantid is also ducking under a spider webline, and needs to be careful that it does not become the meal of another sit and wait predator. It's a real jungle out there!"
Thorp, who has been monitoring the garden since October 2009, a year before it was planted, has so far discovered 75 different species of bees--and counting.
Yes, sometimes amid the predators and the prey, it's definitely a "real jungle out there."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The drama unfolds slowly.
The crafty praying mantis that's perched atop a zinnia raises its spiked, grasping forelegs and silently waits for unsuspecting prey.
A sweat bee cruises by. Then a second one. Then a third.
They do not land and the praying mantis does not move.
Is it possible for an insect to be as still as a statue? It is. Praying mantids can lie in wait for hours. When their prey comes near, they lash out and grab it, holding it in their spiked forelegs while they eat it alive.
Meanwhile, this praying mantis in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre pollinator garden on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, doesn't have long to wait. A honey bee lands on the predator's perch.
A predator. A prey. A pollinator garden.
The bee crawls slowly along the blossoms and is just about to forage when it spots the predator.
In a flurry of wings and legs, almost faster than a 1/640th-of-a-second shutter speed, the praying mantis lunges. Nothing but air! The bee escapes (probably in a "shudder" speed) and buzzes away.
This meal was not to bee.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So you want to capture an image of a praying mantis.
You have to find one first.
Sometimes it's a case of hide 'n seek--it hides, you seek.
Mantises, or mantids, are camouflaged. Many camouflaged (cryptic) insects are "sit-and-wait predators," write emeritus professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston of the University of California, Davis, in the fourth edition of their popular textbook, The Insects, An Outline of Entomology, published by Wiley-Blackwell.
"(Crypyic insects)...may be defensive, being directed against highly visual predators such as birds, rather than evolved to mislead invertebrate prey," they write. "Cryptic predators modeled on a feature that is of no interest to the prey (such as tree bark, lichen, a twig or even a stone) can be distinguished from those that model on a feature of some significance to prey, such as a flower that acts as an insect attractant."
But we inadvertently discovered there's at least one good way to flush out a praying mantis--water your garden. It will hurriedly emerge.
This praying mantis (below), lurking on a tomato plant, apparently didn't like the burst of water that disturbed its stakeout.
It licked the water droplets from its forelegs--legs specialized to seize prey--and then flew to a nearby tree.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
There are many reasons why honey bees don't come home at night.
One of them: a stealthy praying mantis.
If you like to photograph flowers, odds are that some day you'll see more than one insect on a blossom.
Look closely and you may see a praying mantis peering over the petals, watching a bee's every move.
It's not like a proud parent watching an offspring perform at a dance recital or lead a marching band or pitch in a Little League game. The look is fiercely intense, but for a different reason.
Hunger.
Such was the case yesterday at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis.
A honey bee nectaring on a zinnia turned to poke its proboscis deeper into the blossom, unaware of a hidden predator silently emerging from its stakeout.
Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Late night snack?
Not this time. The honey bee sighted the mantid and quickly buzzed off.