Mantis Journal Articles

[ohaple]

There have been a few discussions about mantid behavior and coloration recently. I have seen many good hypotheses from the community, but it would be interesting to compile and read scientific peer-reviewed articles.

What I would like is for this thread to become a compilation of scientific knowledge about praying mantises, sticking only to FREE peer-reviewed journals (not traditional reporting interpreting the results of peer-reviewed journals). While the articles are difficult for many to understand fully, myself included, I find it to be a fun challenge and it often gives interesting insights I didn't have before. I searched the forums, but only found individual threads about news articles. In addition to linking the articles it might be nice to discuss them or ask questions if anyone is confused about a particular study.

Ideally the format would be:

• "Title (underlined)
  
  
  Link (clickable)
  
• Brief Description (where your own thoughts are indicated as such)"
  

While we can embed the link into the title, I like to have the link be transparent so people can more easily assess the source and its potential risks of clicking through.

Here are a couple I found recently and have been working on reading:

• Circadian rhythms affect electroretinogram, compound eye color, striking behavior and locomotion of the praying mantis Hierodula patellifera
  
  
  http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/217/21/3853.full.pdf
  
• This discusses how circadium rhythms (mostly light:dark cycles) impact mantis "compound eye sensitivity, colorimetric photographic analyses to assess compound eye color changes (screening pigment migration), behavioral assays of responsiveness to computer-generated prey-like visual stimuli and analyses of locomotor activity patterns on a modified treadmill apparatus." All of the factors are impacted, and mantids may even change behavior to predict the coming day or night cycle. What I find interesting is how important the predictable light cycle seems to be; it affirms my practice of putting all of the mantis lights on timers to simulate day/night.
  

[*]The functional significance of mantis peering behaviour

• 
  https://www.eje.cz/pdfs/eje/2012/03/01.pdf
  
• This discusses the significance of the mantis "peering" behavior (swaying side to side) and how that may aid in the assessment of absolute distance. This behavior may be rather important in hunting and precise striking. What I find interesting is the analysis of how the binocular compound eyes have zones, where some areas are binocular and others are not, explaining why mantids will turn their heads to focus on prey even though the prey item was in the field of vision without turning the head. 
  

[*]Insect stereopsis demonstrated using a 3D insect cinema

• 
  https://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/217196/21FE8D21-81D1-475C-AF2B-B427BDB7901D.pdf
  
• This article discusses an experiment where mantids were fitted with 3d glasses and various experiments were run to simulate prey "floating" in front of the screen, where the screen was otherwise outside of the mantises strike range. The mantises were tricked by the visual illusion and struck at the simulated prey as if it were closer than the screen, proving that they use stereo vision similar to humans. This is important because other studies in the past speculated that mantises may use any one of several distance estimating techniques. What I find interesting is how this information interacts with the peering behavior study, showing that mantises use both behaviors to get a good distance calculation depending on the situation.
  

Side note: does anyone know how to remove double spacing in posts or change which font is used?