How Intelligent are Mantids?

[stevesm]

I was thrilled to see my African male mantis look straight into my eyes and follow me as I turned my hand. I'm not sure that shows intelligence exactly but it does give an impression of personality.

 

[Peekaboo]

Did he follow you with his eyes or with his head? The lenses in mantis eyes gives the appearance that the mantis is tracking you with their eyes, when in reality it's just an illusion due to the compound lenses.

 

[OGIGA]

I don't think they can move their eyes... right? Their head is already excellent at turning everywhere.

 

[stevesm]

He rotated his head while looking at a fixed position, namely my eyes!

This is him:

Fantastic!

 

[Rick]

I always found it interesting that whenever I tried to take pictures of my mantids, they would always try to grab the camera, or touch the lens. They seemed to be fascinated by personal electronics. I demonstrated this for my wife with one of my Chinese mantids. I put the mantid on my coffee table and then tried to take a picture of her. As soon as she saw the camera, she came walking over towards it. So I moved to a different location and she followed me, never taking her eyes off the camera. I decided to just leave the camera on the table and she crawled all over it, exploring it for a few moments until her "curiosity" was sated.Is curiosity a sign of intelligence?

If sitting on a flat surface they view the camera as something to climb onto.

Mantids cannot move their eyes since somebody asked. They are insects and are not intelligent in the true sense of the word.

 

[stevesm]

Yes, it's just an impression of intelligence. Still compelling though.

 

[Peekaboo]

I don't think they can move their eyes... right? Their head is already excellent at turning everywhere.

When I meant tracking by their eyes, I was alluding to what "appears" to be black pupils that seem directed towards you.

 

[critterguy]

I think that is an optical illusion that the mantis is "looking" at you.

 

[AFK]

mantises are definitely not intelligent. almost all instincts and reflexes. conditioning is probably getting confused with intelligence.

from what i remember, jumping spiders are the smartest of the arthropods. anyone remember if they seem to exhibit considerable intelligence too?

if i also remember correctly, octopuses are by far the most intelligent invertebrates. and yes, they exhibit intelligence.

 

[captainmerkin]

mantises are definitely not intelligent. almost all instincts and reflexes. conditioning is probably getting confused with intelligence.from what i remember, jumping spiders are the smartest of the arthropods. anyone remember if they seem to exhibit considerable intelligence too?

if i also remember correctly, octopuses are by far the most intelligent invertebrates. and yes, they exhibit intelligence.

There are degrees of intelligence, mantid definately have their little sprinkling of it..

Octupus are exceptionally intelligent creatures up to the point where they will solve puzzles simply because they can

 

[neburg964]

I always found it interesting that whenever I tried to take pictures of my mantids, they would always try to grab the camera, or touch the lens. They seemed to be fascinated by personal electronics. I demonstrated this for my wife with one of my Chinese mantids. I put the mantid on my coffee table and then tried to take a picture of her. As soon as she saw the camera, she came walking over towards it. So I moved to a different location and she followed me, never taking her eyes off the camera. I decided to just leave the camera on the table and she crawled all over it, exploring it for a few moments until her "curiosity" was sated.Is curiosity a sign of intelligence?

If sitting on a flat surface they view the camera as something to climb onto.

Mantids cannot move their eyes since somebody asked. They are insects and are not intelligent in the true sense of the word.

Maybe so... but she would ignore other objects on the table, walking past them to get to the camera. And it was definitely not the largest object on the table.

We had a European mantis in our office last year that hung out on a divider between two of our desks. My partner was walking back and forth past the mantis; she would follow my partners movements, but made no attempt to go to her - until my partner took out her cellphone to tak a picture of the mantis. As soon as she did this, the mantis became animated, waving its arms around and not holding still - and then it jumped off the divider and flew to the cameraphone.

This could all be coincidence, but mantids just seem to be naturally curious creatures. And - it's just my opinion - I think curiosity implies intelligence.

 

[critterguy]

I think that perhaps the metal attracts the mantids in some way. Similar to how moths are attracted to a light...but they are not exactly curious about it either.

I still think someone needs to do a standard Y maze test. C'mon. It might take only an hour at most and at the least the results would be interesting.

 

[OGIGA]

But how do we make the mantis want to explore? They'll just stand there all day.

 

[critterguy]

Angle it up. In one place put a reward(a feeding). Some versions of the Y maze use a punishment for the other side, though I can't think of anything.

I know even though earthworms do not seem like bright creatures they can manage this little puzzle somewhat(dark moist place in one arm, sandpaper and a shock in the other). They also have a memory(short, but it is memory). Can probably find this reference somewhere, its a popular example in bio books.

 

[lloydapalooza]

i saw one of my tenodera nymphs play dead today. it straightened out its legs so that it had the silhouette of a twig and wouldn't move when you poked it. of course, this was after trying to get it to eat an earwig that pinched it. Mantids seem to learn when a certain type of prey is harmful to them and to not go for them anymore.

 

[OGIGA]

i saw one of my tenodera nymphs play dead today. it straightened out its legs so that it had the silhouette of a twig and wouldn't move when you poked it. of course, this was after trying to get it to eat an earwig that pinched it. Mantids seem to learn when a certain type of prey is harmful to them and to not go for them anymore.

I saw this with a spider too. Spiders seem to like to play dead a lot when I mess with them.

 

[anthony2001a]

Angle it up. In one place put a reward(a feeding). Some versions of the Y maze use a punishment for the other side, though I can't think of anything.I know even though earthworms do not seem like bright creatures they can manage this little puzzle somewhat(dark moist place in one arm, sandpaper and a shock in the other). They also have a memory(short, but it is memory). Can probably find this reference somewhere, its a popular example in bio books.

The test has to involve something that is a normal behavior. For a worm, crawling to see food/shelter is a normal behavior. For a mantis, probably not.

Mantids tend to stay in one spot and strike prey, so (assuming mantids can see in color, for example, which I don't know if they can or not) you could color a lousy tasting insect "red" with white spots and a good tasting insect with no color. Would the mantis "learn" to not strike at the bad tasting insect or even a good tasting insect colored identically? Or do they just strike at objects that are the right size?

Some Y-mazes with worms involve electricity, so that when the work crosses over two wires in one part of the Y, it gets a shock across its skin and the worm learns to crawl to the other part of the Y without the electricity. I don't see how you could do this practically with a mantis.

Anthony

 

[Way.Of.The.Mantis]

Surely that could kill it?

 

[Birdfly]

I dont know if youd call it intelligence, but i have just observed a 3rd instar Cilnia humeralis nymph catch sight of some fruit flies moving around on 2 bananas suspended several inches above it and with no easy route to it. The mantis checked every route out coming from the fruit until it had, what i believe, the shortest route.It took this path and made a killing. Intelligence? who knows? they can solve some small problems!

Cheers

 

[jplelito]

Mantids tend to stay in one spot and strike prey, so (assuming mantids can see in color, for example, which I don't know if they can or not) you could color a lousy tasting insect "red" with white spots and a good tasting insect with no color. Would the mantis "learn" to not strike at the bad tasting insect or even a good tasting insect colored identically? Or do they just strike at objects that are the right size?Some Y-mazes with worms involve electricity, so that when the work crosses over two wires in one part of the Y, it gets a shock across its skin and the worm learns to crawl to the other part of the Y without the electricity. I don't see how you could do this practically with a mantis.

Anthony

I think something like this was done with Tenodera and milkweed bugs (these are orange and black) - reared some on toxic milkweed seeds, others on non-toxic sunflower seeds - mantids fed the toxic ones then avoided all of the bugs with the same pattern (toxic or not) but the mantids fed non-toxic bugs did not learn that until they ate a toxic one. Further, mantids had a hard time learning this response if you painted the bug grey or something uniform, so maybe they can see color, but at least they see contrast and pattern for sure.

This is similar to a learned aversion response that most creatures can do at some level.