Fear and the Mantis

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cloud jaguar

cloud jaguar

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One thing that really interested me in mantids occurred last year. This is what happened.

By way of background we have a couple of Chihuahua dogs. They are more like their ancestors foxes than like wolves. Basically i really like chi dogs because they are invisible 75% of the time buriend under pillows or mounds of laundry. They are extremely loyal pets and home defenders and will fight to the death and show no fear. Plus they were temple dogs and sacred phychopomps to the aztec priestly class. They were guides through the underworld and carried the spirits of the dead across the river of nine tears to Mictlan, the kingdom of the dead. Anyways, they are pretty cool.

My wife and I were holding a green limbata female adult while we cleaned and moistened the foam substrate of her enclosure. Suddenly her head craned to the side and noticed the chi dog about 8 feet away. Instantly she jumped of off my hand and ran faster than I have ever seen to the face of the chi dog where she splayed her wings and claws in diematic display while attacking repeatedly the dogs face. The dog was powerless against the relentless onslaught of the mantis and ran into the adjacent room, yelping. The mantis instantly regained composure and started cleaning herself.

That was the first time I had ever seen that dog run away from something. Perhaps the dog ran away more out of instinct than fear, but after the second facial attack the dog bolted. Pretty cool i thought.

Have you ever experienced the fearlessness of the mantis?

 
I am sure that if that dog was in its own defense mode that mantis would not be able to do its pose cause it would be in pieces

 
massaman said:
I am sure that if that dog was in its own defense mode that mantis would not be able to do its pose cause it would be in pieces
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That's not the point.

@Arkansis, I've never seen a mantis to that to anything but another mantis. You have a brave limbata, wish mine were like that <_<

 
Arkanis said:
Yeah, i never implied that a mantis would defeat a dog in mortal combat. This post is about fearlessness.
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Yay fearlessness! I especially liked the fact that it beat up on a Chihuahua! It's never happened to me, but then my dog and the mantises are pretty respectful of each other.

I wondered why you called your thread, Fear and the Mantis, though. Given your interest in music, I would like to think that it alludes to "Death and the Maiden". I dismissed "Fear and loathing..." as unworthy. :D

 
I've never had that happen to me, although I do noticed how alert they can be when they see something that may eat them from a few feet away. For instance, when my birds come within a few feet from my mantids, they become extremely alert (ready for the defense pose). When I come near, they just ignore me.

 
I don't have any dogs, and the cat doesn't come near the mantids. However, one time I brought in this ultra-tiny nymph from outside. She was maybe L2, and I temporarily put her enclosure next to one of my huge Chinese adult mantids. The Chinese didn't even look at her, but the little baby got all into a defense pose at the big one. It was so cute and I tried to take a picture but wasn't in time. I always use paper dividers, but that was a cute sight nonetheless.

Rebecca

 
Emile said:
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I was going to post that same link, but Emile beat me to it. :lol: I've never personally witnessed the level of aggression in that video or with the Chihuahua, but my gf has mantids too, and hers curl up the abdomen and become defensive if a cat gets within about 5 feet. I once walked into the room to find one of mine standing perfectly still, giving the front legs in the air threat pose to his brother in the adjacent cup, who wasn't even facing him or paying any attention. I don't know how long he stayed like that, but it was pretty funny.

I think one reason why people who aren't necessarily into the mantid hobby still think that mantids are fascinating is that mantids seem to "know" that humans are different than other creatures, so they are usually friendly towards us. Whatever the real reason for it is, it's their friendly demeanor that always wins people over when they meet my mantids.

 
-MK- said:
I think one reason why people who aren't necessarily into the mantid hobby still think that mantids are fascinating is that mantids seem to "know" that humans are different than other creatures, so they are usually friendly towards us. Whatever the real reason for it is, it's their friendly demeanor that always wins people over when they meet my mantids.
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That is one thing I've always found interesting about mantises. I can handle mine without so much as an antenna twitch, but if my dog or cat walks within view they immediatly zone in and are highly sensitive to every little movement.

I'm not sure I would call a mantis however that runs down and attacks a dog fearless. The behavior seems opposite to me. The mantis feared so much for its life it felt it needed to attack the threat to stay alive. A fearless mantis would have glanced at the dog and gone on about its business without a worry.

 
Counterphobic mantids? Enneagram 6? DSM4 Neurotic defense common in Dissociative Identity Disorder?

I thought that you guys were having a lot of fun at first. Now I'm beginning to worry about you! :D

Fear is mediated by the amygdala. We have one of those and rats have one, too.. Insects don't have one of those so mantids don't either.

It is great fun to talk about mantids having personalities and being happy or angry, but it just don't work that way. Just as well. Think how unhappy they would feel when being eaten by their conspecifics.

The amygdala is also fun: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/overview.html

I don't think that it says so in that article, but the amygdala not only gets scary input from the sensory cranial nerves, optic and auditory, but also stimulates the trigemeninal, in humans at least, to produce fearful facies that help warn others. Cool stuff!

 
thats a sick story, ive had a mantis do a nymph pose to my moving finger lol. i have a medium sized dog but i dont trust him near my cages lol. I really REALLY want to see a full on adult pose though, never seen one in person.

 
If a Mantis started chasing me, I would probably run, too, even though I know that I could just crush it. Unusual aggressive behavior is disconcerting to most mammals, I would think.

 
PhilinYuma said:
Counterphobic mantids? Enneagram 6? DSM4 Neurotic defense common in Dissociative Identity Disorder?
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If that was in response to my post no, not even close to what I was talking about. I was talking about fight or flight when threatened. Naturally manitses don't have the same emotions as people, but they still have a built in self preservation. It is the same instinct that tells them to throw a threat pose or flee when a predator arrives. To flail and attack if something where to grab them. IMO this mantises response against threats seemed abnormally high since it made a point of running down to engage a predator that was not even fussing with it. The word fear was merely a convenient word to use since everyone else seemed to grasp what I meant by it. I'm not a Entomologist so forgive me if my technical speech isn't up to snuff.

Also if the sentence in relation to them being being eaten by their conspecifics was when they were mating, bad example. A lot of higher intellect mammals gladly risk injury and death for a chance at some happy time. ;)

 
Krissim Klaw said:
If that was in response to my post no, not even close to what I was talking about. I was talking about fight or flight when threatened. Naturally manitses don't have the same emotions as people, but they still have a built in self preservation. It is the same instinct that tells them to throw a threat pose or flee when a predator arrives. To flail and attack if something where to grab them. IMO this mantises response against threats seemed abnormally high since it made a point of running down to engage a predator that was not even fussing with it. The word fear was merely a convenient word to use since everyone else seemed to grasp what I meant by it. I'm not a Entomologist so forgive me if my technical speech isn't up to snuff.Also if the sentence in relation to them being being eaten by their conspecifics was when they were mating, bad example. A lot of higher intellect mammals gladly risk injury and death for a chance at some happy time. ;)
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Yep, you're absolutely right! Since you seemed to think that the mantid's reaction was the opposite to fearless, then it would be an attack prompted by fear,and that, in humans -- the most messed up species on earth -- is counterphobia. I absolutely agree with you, though, that the mantid's behavior was abnormal, and so would Edmunds and Brunner who wrote one of the defensive behaviors chapters in the Prete book. It is true that mantids may put on a deimatic display, hold their ground and even make a few jabs when cornered, but to seek out an opponent larger than itself and then go into what is supposed to be a defensive display, sounds crazed. By coincidence, I am reading the Zahavis' The Handicap Principle which is concerned with so-called altruistic behaviors in animals, so it is possible that the mantis "seemed to know" that Arkanis was its source of food and was protecting him from what it perceived to be a threat. :D

BTW To any one who has read that chapter, have you noticed the pix on p.291 that show a mantis displaying to a bird? Until I saw the source, I thought that in the last pic, the mantis, having won, went and relaxed in a deck chair.

 

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