I love praying mantises, always have, and this video right here shows why.
Growing up we used to catch praying mantises, keep them in insect cages, and feed them grasshopper nonstop, which was probably not a smart thing to do, but hey, kids will be kids and the only thing that was worse off because of it were the grasshoppers that got munched.
Watching these up to 5 inch creatures with long arms and a vicious bite go to town on a hornet or tarantula or lizard or snake is one of the most interesting things you can see, but what were about to witness is the hunting capabilities of a mantis at its finest.
The video starts with a mother and her son watching a hummingbird visit their feeder. There also just so happened to be a praying mantis sitting on the feeder and I don’t blame them for not knowing what could possibly go down, I mean who would think an insect would attack a bird, but that’s just what happened and to say the kid was pretty upset at first would be an understatement.
The mantis slowly creeps up on the hovering hummingbird then suddenly reaches its powerful arms out and snags the bird right out of midair. From there, it was all over, as no amount of struggling from the one ounce bird was going to free it from the mantis’ grasp.
The kid gets pretty bummed out, but all of that changes when they go outside to get a closer look at what’s happening.
Once he sees just how awesome it is that an insect was able to grab, kill, and eat a bird, he goes from sad to in awe pretty quickly. You can’t really sum up his emotions with words, so just watch the video with your volume on.
That right there is exactly why I love praying mantises.
