Transplanting Heads?!

[Graz73]

Read this article: http://io9.com/the-bizarre-history-of-insect-head-transplants-456738894

I have heard from some board members here about their mantises living on after being decapitated, but this idea of attaching the head from some other bug is crazy!

Anyone tried this? Does it work with mantises?

 

[BugLover]

Woah, that sounds weird.... if it worked on all those other bugs, i'd imagine it could work on mantids.

I wonder if a mantid's head was bitten off, could you take the head of another mantis to let it live longer??

 

[Graz73]

It seems like the wound would have to be very clean and you'd have to have a way to hold the new head in place in such a way that the mantis would not knock it off with its arms.

Still, I'm skeptical...

 

[MandellaMandy123]

Good gracious! That belongs in a horror movie! I doubt it would work though. You can't replace a head!!!

 

[glock34girl]

Frankenmantid

 

[Mime454]

I swear this place gets weirder every day. First fake mantis penis, now this.

 

[Digger]

Ok. During the long healing process (as stated in the article), how would the insect ingest food?

 

[Introvertebrate]

So here's my suggestion. We know that females often eat males during or after mating. Why not preemptively decapitate the female? Maybe you could keep her alive long enough to produce some ooths by injecting mashed up feeder bugs down her throat. Who wants to try it?

 

[hibiscusmile]

I don't wanna know!

 

[Rick]

I'm going to need to see some more from some peer reviewed journals me thinks.

 

[Graz73]

The article seems to say that either the heads ARE working, or that they're just sending some vague pheromone/hormone signals. Which is it?

Maybe this would work with a bug that does not need to eat much, instead of a "carnivorous" mantis. For instance, moths don't eat much in their adult form, right?

 

[Crazy4mantis]

mantis headed butterfly...

 

[Sneaky123]

Let's suppose that you can truly transplant heads, and they would be fully functional as far as controlling bodily functions. Now let's take a cockroach, which has two brains, one in its abdomen and one in its head. Cut off the cockroach's head, replace it with a random bug's head. Would the two brains conflict?

 

[Bug Trader]

little T virus injection and we can swap their legs out too and create something really odd............You people really have to be bad with mantids or just not truely love them to even want to consider what you have mentioned above.

 

[Introvertebrate]

"Let's suppose that you can truly transplant heads, and they would be fully functional as far as controlling bodily functions. Now let's take a cockroach, which has two brains, one in its abdomen and one in its head. Cut off the cockroach's head, replace it with a random bug's head. Would the two brains conflict?"

Only if both brains are Republican.

 

[Tony C]

"Let's suppose that you can truly transplant heads, and they would be fully functional as far as controlling bodily functions. Now let's take a cockroach, which has two brains, one in its abdomen and one in its head. Cut off the cockroach's head, replace it with a random bug's head. Would the two brains conflict?"

Only if both brains are Republican.

Yep, if they were democrats there wouldn't be any brains to worry about. :shifty:

 

[Bug Trader]

Yep, if they were democrats there wouldn't be any brains to worry about. :shifty:

I find this offensive, Im sure that Democrats have some brains man, they atleast have some sort of zombie level functioning that allows them to blindly vote in hoards without worry of how bad its going to get later.......

 

[Introvertebrate]

Yep, if they were democrats there wouldn't be any brains to worry about. :shifty:

 

[Sneaky123]

Yep, if they were democrats there wouldn't be any brains to worry about. :shifty:

Oh God, I died.