Taking the picture must have spooked it, cuz the next thing I know, I’m on my back…

Judo flip!

  • chepox@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    These things behave really strangely as compared to other bugs. I found one on my yard the other day and as I walked by, I saw it was following me with its head. I went back and forth to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. Nope it was intensely looking at me. So I thought… Perhaps it’s just assessing a predator and keeping it in sight is a useful survival instinct. Then the mofo jumped at my face. Calculated jump and attack. I grabbed it and put it in a turned over glass and it was pissed at me and continued to stare me down. I had some friends over and they looked into the glass too but nah thing wasn’t looking at them. It was looking at me and it looked pissed. I fed her a moth that was flying around by putting it inside the glass with it thinking… Its not going to attack the moth, mantis is probably terrified. Not a time to eat. So I thought. Damn thing proceeded to eat the head of the moth while it kept looking at me in disdain. I had to let the thing go. It was too sentient to be squashed as a bug. So I freed it later that night and made sure I closed the garden door behind me. I don’t want that thing strangling me in my sleep.

  • nickelfish@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Lol, the antennae make it look like he whipped his head over just before he jumped you. Beautiful male Chinese mantis

  • Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I recently learned that the closest relatives to mantids are cockroaches and termites, and they have 3 more eyes on top of their heads between their antennae.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      From a very nineties horror flick ‘bordello of blood’:

      ‘I love a man that gives me head and let’s me keep it’

    • mriormro@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not actually looking at anything. The pseudo pupils occur because you’re staring head on into one of their photoreceptor ‘pixels’, which is absorbing all of the incident light. Meaning there’s no light to reflect back into your eyes. Hence, dark pupil-like spots appear on the compound eyes.