This newbie is really impressed with Mantid mentality

[markdneck]

I have a couple cats and perhaps I should have expected a Mantid, same sort of predator as a cat I guess, to exhibit similar hunting characteristics but cats are smart mammals. How big can a Mantid cortex be!? My Mantid, JC (Jackie Chan) acts much the same as the cats. When I put her into a new enclosure, I have two and trade off during cleaning, she just like a cat examines every inch of the new enclosure. I am not being anthropomorphic, she is very clearly checking it out and likely memorizing the geometry for future hunting purposes?

JC also seems to remember where she made her last catch and returns to that spot and today I watched the way she caught and ate a large cricket. Small crickets she just grabs but this grasshopper size cricket had very strong hind legs and though it was if not as long as JC, it was probably heavier and very strong with large muscles in those jumping legs. To make a meal of the cricket JC hung from the roof of her enclosure, completely unlike the way she "bulrushes" small crickets. She grabbed the cricket and lifted it off the ground thereby neutralizing the leg muscles. She just gobbled it up from the head first. I can't believe she ate the whole thing. Where does she put it. She had two small crickets earlier today!

What a neat pet! Gruesome but fascinating! Thanks to all here for the valuable info you have shared with me.

 

[athicks]

sorry, this post is a repeat of the next one.

 

[athicks]

Mine always attack the head first too! I think it must be instinct to get rid of the head or maybe just because the prey moves it's head around so much? But, yeah it seems that they are very smart, I guess they don't have any cortex space devoted to language, decision space or huge digestive systems. I mean, how detailed are their memories even, they may be able to have a lot of very lightly detailed memories.

PS good name! (JC)

 

[OGIGA]

Mine gets the head first most of the time, but they start from anywhere that's convenient. I recently noticed that they have been starting from the thorax when I feed them roaches from outside.

 

[Rick]

You're looking into it too much. I think you're seeing what you want to see. Mantids and higher life forms like cats are nothing alike.

 

[markdneck]

Sure we mammals have larger cerebrums and are more dependant on learning, less on instinct but aren't you being a bit "order-centric" to say that the two predators are nothing alike? They both stalk, no? They both ambush right? Smaller cat species and Mantids can both be predator and at the same time can be hunted by larger animals; eagles hunt small wild cats and bats prey on Mantids so both exhibit offensive and defensive behavior at the same time.

There does seem to be something like intelligence, whatever that is (like "love", hard to define what intelligence really is!) but it does seem to exist in other inverts like cephalopods like octopus and squids and I think I see effectively discretionary behavior on the part of a hunting Mantid. What else explains why they would so carefully examine a new habitat or take different prey in a different manner? Don't ants who practice agriculture and hunting wasps like tarantula hawks and bees who communicate the direction of new pollen finds to their co-workers act "intelligently"? Well, so do Mantids! I like to think so anyway.

 

[ThorEH]

You're confusing intelligence with inherited instincts...

 

[Asa]

They attack the head, because with the neck off it is easier to get to the more filling organs. It is a lower life form that does not know what or why it does what it does.

 

[Orin]

You're looking into it too much. I think you're seeing what you want to see. Mantids and higher life forms like cats are nothing alike.

If you said birds or monkeys or something reasonable your point would be better taken but it's hard to make a case for a cat being smarter than a mantis, both run almost entirely on instinct.

 

[markdneck]

"The line which demarcates the instinct of the brute creation from the boasted reason of man, is, beyond doubt, of the most shadowy and unsatisfactory character--a boundary line far more difficult to settle than even the North-Eastern or the Oregon. The question whether the lower animals do or do not reason, will possibly never be decided--certainly never in our present condition of knowledge. While the self-love and arrogance of man will persist in denying the reflective power to beasts, because the granting it seems to derogate from his own vaunted supremacy, he yet perpetually finds himself involved in the paradox of decrying instinct as an inferior faculty, while he is forced to admit its infinite superiority, in a thousand cases, over the very reason which he claims exclusively as his own. Instinct, so far from being an inferior reason, is perhaps the most exalted intellect of all. It will appear to the true philosopher, as the divine mind itself acting immediately upon its creatures."

So if a spider designs a web that fits the local trees and plants, is configured best for the available prey and faces the prevailing breeze just right ... that is "instinct" yet if a human engineer, if he could do as well, did the same ... that is IQ? Figuring and planning whether Mantid or cat or person are the same. We just talk about it better!

 

[Asa]

You're looking into it too much. I think you're seeing what you want to see. Mantids and higher life forms like cats are nothing alike.

If you said birds or monkeys or something reasonable your point would be better taken but it's hard to make a case for a cat being smarter than a mantis, both run almost entirely on instinct.

You can teach a cat tricks, can't you? Not as easily as a dog, as cats are really, according to tests, smarter. A cat does deviate from its natural behaviour. If you gave it cat food its entire life, then gave it a rat, and it ate it with no trouble, that is instinct. A better example would be a dog.

 

[jmac27]

Any predatory animal will share some similarities in the way it hunts with other animals, however, a cat's brain is much more advanced and complex than a mantid. A mantid is no higher than any other insect; they're all pretty much preprogrammed organic robots. The human brain naturally searches for patterns in things and collates gathered information. Every time you see or experience something your brain draws on vast stores of information collected throughout your life and instantly connects memories with it. I.e., when you saw the mantid, your brain connected memories of a cat with it which allowed you to see these patterns.

And what you said about a human engineer.. If you really think about it, we're no different than animals. Intelligence is a natural adaptation we've gained through evolution. Our complex brain gives us the illusion that we're set apart from animals and that we don't feed off of instinct like animals, but we do. A human engineer planning the construction of a building is no different than a spider planning to spin a web. Every building you see is as natural as a foxes den in the woods. We change the environment to support our survival as a species. Our intelligence allows us to change it in more complex ways. Any environmentalist would disagree with me here, but it's a philosophy I like.

 

[Asa]

Any predatory animal will share some similarities in the way it hunts with other animals, however, a cat's brain is much more advanced and complex than a mantid. A mantid is no higher than any other insect; they're all pretty much preprogrammed organic robots. The human brain naturally searches for patterns in things and collates gathered information. Every time you see or experience something your brain draws on vast stores of information collected throughout your life and instantly connects memories with it. I.e., when you saw the mantid, your brain connected memories of a cat with it which allowed you to see these patterns.And what you said about a human engineer.. If you really think about it, we're no different than animals. Intelligence is a natural adaptation we've gained through evolution. Our complex brain gives us the illusion that we're set apart from animals and that we don't feed off of instinct like animals, but we do. A human engineer planning the construction of a building is no different than a spider planning to spin a web. Every building you see is as natural as a foxes den in the woods. We change the environment to support our survival as a species. Our intelligence allows us to change it in more complex ways. Any environmentalist would disagree with me here, but it's a philosophy I like.

Of course, a human engineer is taught 'how' to build a building, by someone who 'discovered' 'how'. Something like a spider, did not learn this. And as my faith requires, I believe that we are different than animals because we have souls. Any atheist would disagree with me here, but it's a philosophy I like.

 

[markdneck]

Mantid behavior to the existence of God ... Proves people into this kind of stuff are smarter than the average bear, I mean average bug!

 

[Asa]

Well, some of us :lol: .

 

[jmac27]

Well, some of us :lol: .

No need to get offensive here, they're just ideas. I don't really like beliefs because when you tell someone who believes something anything different from what they believe they get angry. I'm no atheist either. I'm an agnostic and I don't really feel you can know anything for certain. I don't like to assume that God or anything of the such does exist, yet I also don't like to assume that it doesn't exist. I am a philosopher. I like ideas because you can change them. I like to look at all aspects of everything from every angle.

 

[markdneck]

But you didn't figure out this "faith" of yours that you mentioned. You didn't choose it, right? You believe it because your parents programmed you to believe it. Isn't that more like a mantitid's or spider's instinct than about anything? Had your parents been Mayans you would believe in a Jaguar God, if they were Hindu you would believe in Shiva and that the world was created on the back of a giant turtle.

Humans do have original thinkers, the Einsteins and Newtons with 200+_ IQs. the rest of us are programmed about the way Mantids are programmed.

Enough Philosophy!!!

 

[jmac27]

I don't want to get an into an argument over this. Let's stick to discussing mantids. Speaking of which, I am very excited because my budwings and wide arms arrive today.

 

[Asa]

Well' date=' some of us :lol: .[/quote']No need to get offensive here, they're just ideas. I don't really like beliefs because when you tell someone who believes something anything different from what they believe they get angry. I'm no atheist either. I'm an agnostic and I don't really feel you can know anything for certain. I don't like to assume that God or anything of the such does exist, yet I also don't like to assume that it doesn't exist. I am a philosopher. I like ideas because you can change them. I like to look at all aspects of everything from every angle.

Oh, sorry if you thought I was referring to you. No, I certainly respect your ideas theories and beliefs. It was just a passing joke referring to no one, except perhaps myself. I was not being offensive at all. No hard feelings. If anyone contradicts my belief, I believe in calmly explaining to them why I think it is. However I do believe that some beliefs are certain and unchanging. Sorry if misunderstood.

markdneck, I did choose my faith, as did my parents did, despite both of them being raised as Anglicans, they turned to Lutheran, then they instructed me in Lutheran, where I thought that some of the ideals they tried to teach me were wrong. I converted to Roman Catholism. It is not an easy relegion to uphold, considering it is more widely critiqued and blasted than the Muslim relegion. But it has lasted 2000 years, during the first 1500 there were no split ups from the main body. Until Martin Luther showed up if you were a christian you were a Catholic. Nowadays If you are any significant relegion, besides Hindu, then you are part of the part that branched off from the Catholic church. And of course, the Catholic relegion draws a lot of attention. For example the shooting of Pope John Paul the 2nd. And when Pope Benedict the 12th was ordained, every tv channel had their cameras focused on the Vatican. Sorry if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, but that is part of the mystery of religion. No offense taken from either of you, and hopefully none given, if so I apologize.