# How do mantids taste?



## Sticky (Mar 6, 2013)

A friend asked me how do mantids taste thier food? Do they have a tongue? I know they enjoy thier food. Thanks.


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## sally (Mar 6, 2013)

I have been on a mission to find the answer to this! Nothing yet lol


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## Paradoxica (Mar 6, 2013)

I have no idea, but when I read your title I thought it would be about what a mantis tastes like.

Just a few days ago my girlfriend posed the random question to me "If you had to eat one of your bugs which one would it be?"

(I hypothetically picked a cryptic nymph because they are all legs and don't seem like you'd taste it much) :stuart:


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## Malakyoma (Mar 6, 2013)

Thats not what came to mind when I read the thread title lol.


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## Sticky (Mar 7, 2013)

Sorry! I guess I should have put it "How do mantids taste thier food?". My friend was on the phone when I wrote it telling me what to say. I told her she should join. But its a good question.

I would not eat any of mine.


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## Rick (Mar 7, 2013)

You might could look up taste in insects and go from there. I doubt they have any sense of taste as we know it. They may be able to detect noxious compounds that could harm them though.


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 7, 2013)

I know, I know! with their touges! :tt2: ps always time for fun!


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## Paradoxica (Mar 7, 2013)

Rick said:


> You might could look up taste in insects and go from there. I doubt they have any sense of taste as we know it. They may be able to detect noxious compounds that could harm them though.


They definitely have some kind of detectors, I once (foolishly) fed nymphs aphids from a milkweed plant. They took a bite and then almost violently threw the aphids down, I later found out milkweed is toxic and makes the aphids toxic as well.


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## Digger (Mar 7, 2013)

Yes, they do have "tongues" as part of their rather complex intake system. Great research question. If they can't taste (or the insect equivalent), why do they reject some appropriate food ( FEH ! ) and gobble other choices??


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## Ntsees (Mar 7, 2013)

Interesting. I wonder if they taste with those small antennae-like appendages located at their mouths (~maxillary palps).

(3 minutes later) I looked it up. Looks like it could be the palps.


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## Mime454 (Mar 7, 2013)

I saw in a video that they have a mustache of tongues at the beginning of their mouth.


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## Krissim Klaw (Mar 7, 2013)

Girl mantises taste like sugar and spice, and everything nice. Boy mantises taste like slugs and snails, and puppy dog tails. :tt2:


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 7, 2013)

haha, kk u the bees knees! :stuart:


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## Ranitomeya (Mar 10, 2013)

Taste is essentially a sense that reacts to certain chemical stimuli. I know that mantids can detect sugars because the introduction of a sugar-rich substance near their head without coming into physical contact will cause them to search for the source and ultimately ingest the substance. They can most likely "taste" the air and objects around them or detect chemical compounds with receptors in their antennae and mouth parts such as the palps. I do not know if they have chemoreceptors on their tarsi like with butterflies, which can taste with their feet. They are very likely able to detect plant toxins which are usually alkaloids. Humans are able to detect alkaloids as a bitter taste when the chemical receptors on our tongues come into contact with such compounds.


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## zeadlee (Mar 15, 2013)

I just found that there are palpus like things on their mouthes. when i fed them by hand they would touch the food by those palpus and began to eat.wondering if those are their tongues


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## Bug Trader (Mar 15, 2013)

They taste best chocolate covered, trust me. Bout to dip a couple hundred fresh hatched chinese anyone want a box o chocolate bugs?


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## angelofdeathzz (Mar 15, 2013)

A mismolt omelet with a double side of bacon, now who can say no to that! :chef: 

Ingredients:

1 large or 3 small mismolted mantis quartered

5 eggs

1/2 chopped red pepper

1 expired ooth finely chopped

dash of salt/pepper

shredded cheddar

garnish with exoskeletons and a generous dollop or fly pupae(may be deep fried or raw)

*Next issue will explain the culinary importance of chicken fried mantis steaks in Alfredo sauce...


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## agent A (Mar 15, 2013)

My recipe for limbata chip cookies

Got too many stagmomantis limbata? Heres the recipe:

3/4 cups softened butter

1/2 cup flour

2 cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cups dead L1-L4 stagmomantis limbata, freshly freezer killed

The ooths they came from, diced into fine pieces

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Mix the butter, both sugars, and the baking soda in a large bowl until moistened

Add the baking powder until even textured

Stir in the ooth chunks and nymphs

Roll into half inch balls and place evenly spaced on an ungreased cookie sheet

Bake 8 minutes and let cool for 1 minute before removing from sheet


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## Orin (Mar 15, 2013)

The palps (small sensory appendages around the mouth that look like two tiny pairs of legs) taste the food. Otherwise I hear they taste like chicken.


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## Sneaky123 (Mar 16, 2013)

I'll bet they taste good fried. Maybe even boiled, if you add salt...

Oh! You meant how do mantids taste their food? This is pure assumption, but I doubt they can even taste. Have you ever fed a mantis a moth, and watched it eat the fuzz that comes off the moth's wings? I doubt that could taste very good.


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## Sticky (Mar 16, 2013)

agent A said:


> My recipe for limbata chip cookies
> 
> Got too many stagmomantis limbata? Heres the recipe:
> 
> ...


Oh no! Look at what I started!


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## patrickfraser (Mar 16, 2013)

I'd ask my chameleons, but they cannot hear by question nor speak the answer. They seem to be delicious. Never get a nosed turned up for a mantid.


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## fleurdejoo (Mar 16, 2013)

Rick, I'm glad I'm not the only one who say's "You might could."


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## patrickfraser (Mar 16, 2013)

LOL...and SHE'S BACK!


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## agent A (Mar 16, 2013)

fleurdejoo said:


> Rick, I'm glad I'm not the only one who say's "You might could."


Yay!! I missed jude!!!


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## angelofdeathzz (Mar 17, 2013)

agent A said:


> My recipe for limbata chip cookies
> 
> Got too many stagmomantis limbata? Heres the recipe:
> 
> ...


i tried to use 2 sugars but your recipe only lists 1, so now I have gooey lumps of half baked mantis parts on a cookie sheet? inch:


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## agent A (Mar 17, 2013)

angelofdeathzz said:


> i tried to use 2 sugars but your recipe only lists 1, so now I have gooey lumps of half baked mantis parts on a cookie sheet? inch:


Oops i left out the half cup white sugar


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## SilentDeviL (Mar 19, 2013)

Maybe you can ask her how it taste ..........

http://youtu.be/gTzpElEDPp4


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## Bug Trader (Mar 19, 2013)

Oh wow I think I love her...........is that wrong?


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## patrickfraser (Mar 19, 2013)

...and she ate it to get 2 guys to go to church? I think that's what they said. WWJD? I doubt he would.


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