Why you gotta be cautious when feeding wasps to your mantis

[AFK]

orchid mantises seem to have relatively much larger raptorial forelegs...i would guess the forelegs are better armored too since these guys have adapted to feed primarily on flying insects?

 

[Rick]

I've fed wasps plenty of times without any problems. Not sure if all those were even wasps.

 

[AFK]

first one was either a hornet or a yellow jacket (way too fast and blurry to distinguish)

second one was even faster and blurrier, but i think i saw really long legs and my most probable guess would be a paper wasp

either way, both flying insects did something to cause the mantises to back off or retreat.