Mantis eats goldfish, again

Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Being eaten alive is being eaten alive regardless of what type of animal it is.
i personally think thats an oversimplistic way of looking at it but i do agree that some could see it that way.

I don't think animals display pain in the same sense of the word as humans. Perhaps more of a sensory devolopment.
i think certainly in many creatures it is only sensory reflex action, but i dont think its fair to say it is this way for all animals in general. anyway, i think the whole "are we animals?" question is a whole different discussion ;)

If you want to feed vertebrates to mantids then fine, but don't air it on the internet.
i agree with this, things can so easily be spun twisted to fit agendas unfortunately.

 
Goldfish have been trained to swim through hoops for food, the training was left out for three months and when the hoops were introduced they swam through and expected food again. They are no Alberts but a 3 second memory would simply make an animal extinct. All animals have to have a good memory its a survival tool

My mrs is a dog behaviourist/trainer/nutritionalist i will see if we can find the paper work.

I argue with anti anglers that a hook through the mouth is not cruel, they certainly feel it in my estimation but it is not pain like we would experience it, but to be slowly minced alive is a totally different matter, even if this animal felt pain at half the level we do still makes it cruel considering that a quick flick on the head would humanely euthanize it and it could still be fed to the mantis.

http://nootropics.com/intelligence/smartfish.html

 
Goldfish have been trained to swim through hoops for food, the training was left out for three months and when the hoops were introduced they swam through and expected food again. They are no Alberts but a 3 second memory would simply make an animal extinct. All animals have to have a good memory its a survival tool
Never believe trivia I guess... :rolleyes: :lol:

 
Poor fishy. :( Normally, I would put the prey in such a position that the mantid starts eating at the head first so that it doesn't suffer so much. BTW do insects feel the same amount of pain as humans and animals?

 
there something on youtube.

you guys havent seen it?

National geographic or discovery or something was recording and documenting a mantis

a snake comes outta nowhere, and the mantis picks it up and starts to go at it and eat it,

luckily the snake got away.

Isnt a snake "more advanced" than a fish?

and snakes eat fish outta water as well, (live)

i've seen a terrarium with a small boa and a some feeder goldfish,

the snake will eat some of the fish when it gets hungry.

Isnt a snake a vertebrae as well?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Isnt a snake "more advanced" than a fish?
i dont like this talk of vertibrates being "more advanced" than invertibrates, the evolution of animals isn't hierarchical, its simply a process of creatures adapting to fill unfilled niches, if, in order to do that they need a spine and to dispose of the exoskeleton then that is what they do.

remember if the dinosaurs had never become extinct mammals would never be able to fill the same niches

insects fill niches in an advanced way that not many mammals are able to, the evidence that they dont fill all the same niches speaks for itself, invertibrates can adapt much faster to changing environments, the fact that they have changed little over the millions of years of thier existance is proof of this, when an animal finds a form that is supremely successful it will change little, look at the crocodile.

also i would like to point out that humans dont even consider fish as meat, some vegitarians will eat it

however many people would find graphic video's of a mantid consuming a fish a little distasteful, especially when its still wriggling

 
Last edited by a moderator:
well there is 2 points of this thread i guess

1. Mantids will can attack anything and eat it.

2. You shouldnt record what u did and put onto this thread like that i guess haha

 
mantis eating a rat?

Mantids are vicious period.

they eat anything man.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I understand your argument, and even if fish had a sensory system (which they don't, they can feel very little being that they live in thick liquids and are touched all day by debris, but not extreme pains, especially suffocation. trust me I am a bio major.) I think it is completely okay to feed him fish.

Mantids are predators, and predators are animals of opportunity, not being picky of their kill, if a large mantis stumbled upon a small pond one day, and he was hungry, you bet your ###### he would grab a fish. Every predator is this way, so while in captivity giving him a new food source every now and again shouldn't be a problem. I personally think it is inhumane to give a captive animal a steady diet of crickets or flies, which is why every animal I have ever had (except my dog) has had a variety of wild feed I catch myself when the weather is up.

On the other hand, I do completely agree with the fact that videos can harm us if one of those insane vegans who have no idea what they are talking about tries to submit it to the animal rights people. So be careful what you show.

 
I think your all missing the point, yes mantids, just like a lot of predators kill and eat other living things, some are quick killers, Crocs, peregrine, pythons and boas etc some are slow, mantids etc, mantids dont care, if its no threat it will be eaten any old way, arse first quite often, if it is bigger and potentially dangerous prey a mantis will suspended it in space and make a concious effort to remove its head or legs to make the prey impotent.

( uk ) Its not illegal to feed live food invertibrates or vertibrate animals to predatory "pets" but it is illegal to cause unnessasary suffering to any vertibrate, you can be had for any animal cruelty and prosicuted (dont know the laws on this in the US) and can be banned from keeping animals. The video of the fish would be good evidence of cruelty over here. The cornsnake and mouse and other animals that are shown being eaten slowly by mantids would also be considered cruelty imo and if staged in this country, they are all or at least most of them staged in arenas for film despite how natural it looks, there set ups.

Robs point above is more serious, we have had shows stopped among other things because certain people of an animal movement think the whole process of keeping any animal in captivity is cruel, with amunition like some of these inverts feeding on vertibrates vids showing animals fighting (also illegal...called baiting) killing and eating one another in ways that can easily be proved as cruelty or unnessasary suffering (because the mantis, if hungry would eat the fish dead 100% of the time) eg mantis eating live mouse/snake/fish, tarantula stabbing live mouse over and over are causing an animal (vertibrate) unnessasary suffering, this could get some one banned from keeping animals but worse it could just be another nail in the coffin of herp/invert culturing etc etc

 
Last edited by a moderator:
to me: the fish just dies, and in the food chain, it doesn't matter if the predator is a bigger fish, cat, or praying mantis.

the fish still dies, and if bought as feeder, i would ie anyway.

this is not something that i would do often tho.

 
Degree of specialization

Further information: Generalist and specialist species

Among predators there is a large degree of specialization. Many predators specialize in hunting only one species of prey. Others are more opportunistic and will kill and eat almost anything (examples: humans, leopards, and dogs). The specialists are usually particularly well suited to capturing their preferred prey. The prey in turn, are often equally suited to escape that predator. This is called an evolutionary arms race and tends to keep the populations of both species in equilibrium. Some predators specialize in certain classes of prey, not just single species. Almost all will switch to other prey (with varying degrees of success) when the preferred target is extremely scarce, and they may also resort to scavenging or a herbivorous diet if possible.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predation

 
I understand your argument, and even if fish had a sensory system (which they don't, they can feel very little being that they live in thick liquids and are touched all day by debris, but not extreme pains, especially suffocation. trust me I am a bio major.) I think it is completely okay to feed him fish.
Its called a Lateral line, In fish, the lateral line is a sense organ used to detect movement and vibration in the surrounding water. Lateral lines are usually visible as faint lines running lengthwise down each side, from the vicinity of the gill covers to the base of the tail.

Other senses include sight, touch, smell, taste etc :blink:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
:lol: I guess now we all know not to post any of our gruesome kills on the internet. Do you guys think it's that much a danger that animal rights activist will actually place inhumane (irony) behaviour on an insect? Just curious.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top