Are there any predatory insects so fearsome as the mantids? My friend was kind enough to let me come shoot her lady mantis feeding; never have I been so glad to not be a cricket. Did you know that the name “Mantis” means “Diviner” and it comes from the ancient Greeks who thought these insects had supernatural powers? I will say, after watching the speed of this animal’s strike, I kind of get it.
The interesting thing about mantids is that although they have two eyes, these insects have only one ear. This ear is located in the center of the insect’s chest, meaning mantids aren’t great at discerning where a sound is coming from, but they ARE exceptional at detecting the ultrasonic cries that bats use to hunt. If you watch a bat hunting a mantis in flight, you can see the mantis dodge an attack the moment before it even happens. This trick is the result of the insect’s specialized ear, which can detect the ultrasonic pulses that bats send out as they focus on their prey in the moment of attack. The mantis senses the imminent strike, and 300 milliseconds before impact, her auditory nerve goes dead as she dives towards the ground like a fighter pilot evading enemy fire.
It’s purely speculation on my part, but I almost wonder if the ancient Greeks witnessed this phenomenon in the wild and named these insects diviners for their uncanny ability to drop out of the sky the moment before becoming a bat’s dinner. Without knowing about their auditory ace in the hole, the mantis’ trick does almost look supernatural. However, as Dana Scully so wisely put it, “Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it”
