September 4, 2010

Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis.

It's Saturday night, and the praying mantis at the University of Wisconsin is restless and reckless. We try to help, but he seems lacking in rationality. (WARNING: 1 bad word.)

8 comments:

AST said...

What's his major? Entomology?

If so, he may have just learned about the mating habits of his species and decided to end it all right now.

If I were he, I'd want to end it all by finding a willing female. I think they experience sexual climax as a long tunnel of light.

I used to love catching these and feeding them grasshoppers for a few days, before getting bored and releasing them.

Fred4Pres said...

Looking for love? Don't female praying mantis rip the heads off the males following sex?

Crack MC could tell you about that!

Synova said...

They bite the male's head off and eat the body. Not always, but often. I don't know if he recovers if he doesn't get eaten though. Might die anyway.

If it's any consolation, female mantises also often die after they've laid eggs once. I don't think they always die, but they often do.

Chip Ahoy said...

Our family stopped at an isolated roadside Denny's. Finished scarfing early, we went outside and ran around before getting back into the car for a long haul home. My sister found a praying mantis at the edge of the clearing. It was green and HUGE and FAT. She brought it into the car. Transported it home. Put it in a shoebox. Forgot about it, as children do. Opened the box one day and it was dead, but it left behind a bunch of cotton-looking stuff. Closed the box again. Opened the box again a few days later and a BILLION baby praying mantises flew out of the box. Or maybe it was a hundred. OKAY FINE! twenty or so baby praying mantises flew out of the box. Or possibly they just crawled out of the box and my sister screamed anyway because she's a natural-born drama queen. Hey, it was a long time ago, ah'ight, and I wasn't in the room when she opened the shoebox. Apologies for my story not having any bitten off heads.

Unknown said...

He looked like he'd just left a bar after a long night of pub crawling.

Unknown said...

Synova, kinda close. Males usually don't get eaten (depends a lot on the species). In the wild they will sometimes wait until the female has a catch before approaching. The male that isn't eaten goes off to find another female. The female mantid (that one is an Aridifolia sinensis) will lay a number of ootheca before death. I've had Chinese mantids (A.f.) lay up to six or seven with maybe 150 eggs in each.

Rockport Conservative said...

Is this on facebook, too? Three of my relatives have posted pictures of the Great Big preying mantises they have found in their yards, on their truck, a couple of others have posted their tales of the critters. Must be preying mantis season.

Rick Lee said...

This is weird... I do a post on a bumblebee moth and then you post on a bumblebee moth. I do a post on a praying mantis and then you do a post on a praying mantis.