I've spent the last two hours frustrated. I am trying to begin my passion blog but have no Idea what to talk about. I am frantically trying to find anything I would think is interesting, but I can think of nothing. In the midst of this struggle, I watch a video of a praying mantis (female) biting her mate's head off during mating. What really caught my attention, was that afterwards they kept mating. I knew then what my topic was going to be on. For maybe the first time in my life, procrastination has helped me complete homework.
For this week's topic, we are going to diverge into the behavior and characteristics of the Budwing Mantis. What makes this mantis unique, is that it is one of the most aggressive Praying Mantis' out of all of the species. While the females can be only 6-7cm long, they will still attack... well pretty much anything. When approached, they will raise their wings in a menacing position, that will scare away even a male Budwing Mantis. What is fascinating is how a bug so small evolved to be so aggressive. The female Budwing Mantis refuses to run away from predators; she actually stands them down. It makes me wonder what goes on in these insects head: how do they think? Due to the female's survival, she teaches all of us a lesson in fear. Being threatening is more playing the part than actually possessing the means to cause harm.
The male Budwing Mantis is much smaller at about 3-4cm (about half the size of females). Unlike females, they are not nearly as aggressive. Unfortunately, many mating attempt ends in death. Apparently this is to help provide nutrients for female Mantis' and aid them in reproduction. I on the contrary, don't think that this is justified. When I was younger and learned about bee colonies, I thought it was cruel for female bees to mate with males and then kick them out of the hive. However, these bees have it so much better than the male Praying Mantis.
What is interesting, is even without a head, male praying mantis' are still controlled by nerves in their abdominal muscles and can still reproduce. The ability for an animal to do this makes one examine the complexity of a species. I think that the ability to explain this is beyond science, because I have not been able to find a concrete reason as to how nerves can still be activated without a head.
Due to a better understanding of the Budwing Mantis, I at least became very fearful of finding it accidentally around me. Thankfully, these species can only live in a very specific climate, and are found only in and around the country Kenya. While these creatures are intriguing, they are horrifying. The Budwing Mantis looks like an actual alien, and behaves in ways that are beyond at least my understanding. If I were a male, I'd try to mate a different species. I don't think they're aware of the many DIFFERENT fish in the sea.