Praying Mantis Chasing Fish for the First Time | Smart News

One night in March last year, a praying mantis slipped on a rooftop garden in India and was perched on an artificial pond, waiting with attention. Jake Buehler of Jake Buehler of Jake Buehler National Geographic.

The unusual scene was observed by environmental defender Rajesh Puttaswamaiah, who witnessed the giant Asian male mantle (Hierodula heldidentata) return to the rooftop garden five consecutive nights. The furtive creature trailed on water lilies or water cabbage leaves until a guppy got close enough to grab it. He ate up to two fish during each hunting session and managed to catch a total of nine guppies. After the fifth night, the mantis stopped visiting the garden.

Puttaswamaiah, Conservationist Nayak Manjunath and Roberto Battiston, entomologist at the Musei del Canal di Brenta in Italy, describe this unprecedented hunting behavior Journal of Orthoptera Research. Mantides, they note in their new report, are known to feed on small vertebrates such as lizards, mice, snakes and turtles, but these encounters often take place in cages or as a result of others. types of human interference. More generally, mantides eat insects, especially insects.

Research has shown, however, that mantis can be clever and aggressive hunters. A study conducted in 2017 revealed that mantis around the world are able to catch and eat small birds, most of them being fast hummingbirds. But even though the insects seem willing to gorge themselves on most things that they can catch, Puttaswamaiah and his co-authors were surprised that the rooftop praying mantis could see well enough to catch fish in the water. 39; darkness.

The prayer mantis' eye structure "clearly indicates that they have evolved into prey in the light of day," the researchers said in a press release, but the mantis described in the study was still hunting at sunset or later. The fact that the insect was able to see its prey in the water, which is another "visual barrier", according to Ms. Battiston, is even more surprising. But he has a theory about how the mantis managed to catch the guppies.

"[A] The mantide's eye does not work like ours, "he says. "They see movements better than shapes or colors. the [guppies] to have a big tail, they move like a flag while swimming, and it may look like the mantide, a strange insect is walking.

The guppy-gulping mantis also suggests that insects may be able to learn in complex ways. The rooftop garden was filled with many tasty insects to eat for the creatures, but he chose to return, night after night, to the same hunting spot.

"This behavior is very similar to a precise hunting strategy – no random choices," Battiston told Mindy Weisberger of Science live.

Like many predators, mantes are able to have aversive learning or learn from negative experiences; a recent study has shown that insects manage to avoid artificially bitter prey. According to the authors of the study, the mantis of the roof "suggests an additional step towards a more articulated cognitive process": the ability to take into account various environmental indices – the abundance of prey on a particular site, its ease of capture, its nutritional value – and to formulate new hunting strategies.

Of course, researchers' theories are based on the behavior of a single praying mantis and further investigation is needed before new conclusions can be drawn about the hunting abilities and cognitive abilities of the insect. But the possible consequences of the feast of the night snack are, at the very least, an interesting food.

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