world's largest praying mantis

[yen_saw]

A friend of mine claimed to capture a live mantis of 10-inch long last year. I am waiting for him to find the specimen he collected (yep it is dead), although i have doubt as people always claim to have seen something larger than it actually is, i will wait for this one. But please don't ask me anything more, i will post a pic here if i actually get the specimen.

 

[Christian]

It was only in 1999 that Shangri-La was supposedly "discovered"

Oh, damn, and I thought that this would remain a secret. Well, now that this was revealed, I think it is time to uncover the truth about this issue. I searched my sources all the day and did some important phone calls and can admit that giant mantids really existed.

Old papyri and some scarce fossil records tell us that there existed once a species scientifically known as Atlantoharpax gigas. It occurred on Atlantis, which we all know was a part of the split up ancient continent Gondwana, and fed primarily on dwarf elephants. The taxonomic status is not known for certain, but it is assumed by leading experts that it belonged to an own family, being the sister taxon of the much smaller but otherwise very similar Deliriomantis neglecta known from Lemuria only.

A. gigas was rather rare initially, but the Atlantians liked to watch them in the arena fighting against each other, so they increased their population size by feeding them exhaustively with all dwarf elephants they could find. Once the elephants were wiped out, they started to feed them anything adequate that was available, relying also on their good trade relationships with other cultures. They fed giant deer from Hyperborea, those bloody sirens that used to cause damage to their fishing nets, giant birds imported from other islands, and even some little grey big-eyed creatures they pulled out of an UFO that crushed in the roof of their main temple. They also sent an expedition to Tibet, but it yelded just a few snow-men and was not worth the effort.

Well, one day neither birds nor sirens nor yetis were available and from then on the Atlantians got a rather important problem. The next decades are known as the Dark Age, but there isn't many information available from this period. However, it is known that the population suffered great losses (the population of the Atlantians, of course) until, one day, the last Atlantian in a last effort managed to push the self-destruction button while being firmly grasped by the forelgs of an subadult Atlantoharpax which was already slurping his bowels out of his body. As we all know the island exploded and sank afterwards. This is the last record of this species ever.

Since then, every ancient culture knew the self-evident wisdom: "When the giant mantids triumph, the world degenerates into utter chaos."

Now this is the real reason why there aren't any giant mantids today!

Don't believe anything else!

 

[Mantis Keeper]

Thats not an extremely mature way to handle the issue is it? We present you with evidence that you could easily validate as true, not to prove the exsistence of larger mantids, but to say it is possible that they reach 18 inches and haven't been discovered yet and you respond by dismissing everything we say as some sort of fairy tale. For an expert you don't really even seem to like recieving new evidence. The objective of science isn't to prove what you already know, but to broaden the mind and explore what isn't known. You don't get that by ignoring all opposing ideas. Science is called THEORY for a reason; it's constantly changing when new evidence arrives. As a self proclaimed expert in a science field I would expect more of you than that.

Kirk

 

[Christian]

Now come on, it was funny, wasn't it?

The problem is that there was no evidence whatsoever. I wanted to show you what a fairy tale is. And all that was presented here was a fairy tale. What I understand as a evidence are published scientific data and/or collection specimens. There is no collection specimen larger than the known species. And there is also no scientific publication about such a specimen. That are facts. And not a tale about a mystic country bearing new species. The new species may be there, but why should there be an oversized mantid included? Why there, where climate conditions are rather unfavorable for mantids as such, not talking about an oversized one? It is serious and safe to consider such a mantid as nonexistent until it is found, and to discuss the chances for such a large species to exist - a chance close to zero due to ecological, physiological and physical constraints. Now think about it and then please consider again if you really want to blame me as having a nonscientific attitude!

 

[Precious]

I for one believe you Christian.. but you must take into consideration that not everybody in the world knows who you are, and what education/profession you've got They don't know that you're not just a guy that has read about this on the internet..

Perhaps you could tell people a little about yourself ?

This may come as a shock to you, but I don't care who you are or what your education is. I would never, ever even use Wikipedia much less rely on it as a resource. You know as little about me (and the individual who started this thread) as we know about you, yet you are comfortable in your assumption that we are uneducated, unscientific and poorly informed. The only thing I know about you is how very rude you are and that's really all I care to know.

ThorEH - Your photography is stunning.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

Again, I am not saying that it is even very likely at all that there even is such a species, especially not in that particular location. I was only using that location because it is proof that there are vast tracts of land that we have not explored. Your right that the chances of finding any mantids larger than we already have are almost zero. But my point is that they are NOT zero, and any chance at all means we can't just automatically dismiss the possibilities.

Kirk

 

[Christian]

you are comfortable in your assumption that we are uneducated, unscientific and poorly informed

I can remember neither to have named anyone uneducated nor having lumped people together. A lack of information may be found here or there. When information is given then, however, it often ends with rejecting that information. Really confusing...

I don't care who you are or what your education is

Obviously, as

The only thing I know about you is how very rude you are and that's really all I care to know

Now who is comfortable in her assumption?

 

[Christian]

@Kirk: we don't differ in this point. I think we just differ in weighing the consequences. You emphasize that they are not and still above zero, I prefer to see them as almost not different from zero.

But that story of Shangri La is far beyond scientific usance. Those guys may have found some remote habitat, but naming a mythological country in the same phrase just leads to not taking them for serious anymore.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

However, I seem to talk against walls here. If you decide to ignore scientific truth and decide to believe in Wikipedia rumours, just do it. I won't take more of my precious time to explain myself and why I know what I'm talking about. Take it or leave it, I don't have any problem with this. It seems to me that some people think they have eaten the wisdom of the world with spoons just by googling a few weeks through the www. Forget all the literature! Forget all science! Forget the skills of long-term experts and taxonomists! Believe the stoned guy who saw a 30 cm mantis in his opium halo some 70 years ago! That's real!

I do believe that this is where you said that our information was uneducated and unscientific. In the process you tagged everyone who had disagreed with your viewpoint. It isn't a really serious jab and isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I can see where the idea of an acusation comes from.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

Well I'm glad to see we are almost on the same page here now. I just believe that the name of the location they choose to give isn't important, whats important is that what was found there still exsists under whatever name given. The name does more to draw the worlds attention than to prove any main point. It's already sad how little people care about the environment, mythilogical connections attract a larger audience, and thus help them do the job of conservation. People won't save it if they don't care about it.

 

[Christian]

QUOTE(Christian @ Nov 29 2007, 05:00 AM) *However, I seem to talk against walls here. If you decide to ignore scientific truth and decide to believe in Wikipedia rumours, just do it. I won't take more of my precious time to explain myself and why I know what I'm talking about. Take it or leave it, I don't have any problem with this. It seems to me that some people think they have eaten the wisdom of the world with spoons just by googling a few weeks through the www. Forget all the literature! Forget all science! Forget the skills of long-term experts and taxonomists! Believe the stoned guy who saw a 30 cm mantis in his opium halo some 70 years ago! That's real! wink.gif

I do believe that this is where you said that our information was uneducated and unscientific. In the process you tagged everyone who had disagreed with your viewpoint. It isn't a really serious jab and isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I can see where the idea of an acusation comes from.

I still can find anywhere the word "uneducated". I rely on "unscientific", though. Some ideas were unscientific, in any scientific sense. I can claim that one argument is unscientific at any time, if I explain why (what I did multiple times, by the way). This is not the same as claiming people to be uneducated. This is really a big difference and I have to insist on this difference, as I have never said the latter! I think the problem arose because some people have not differentiated between the two. "Unscientific" is not equal to "uneducated".

My humor seems to be too much for sensitive persons. Well, that's life.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

I'm not saying you did, I was just saying that I think that is where the comment came from as that is as close as I can find to what was claimed you said.

 

[Mantida]

Christian, I'm sorry, but I don't think your "story" response was necessary. It is funny, at some areas yes, but will not be taken well by some. We are discussing about this topic, not picking out someone's quote and being wholely sarcastic on the response. I'm not trying to pick sides or anything, but personally, I do not believe that such a large mantis would ever exist in the twentieth and twenty first century. However, I'm not going to quote someone who's on the other side of the debate and write out a totally unreasonable and sarcastic response. We know you contain a lot of information in your head regarding arthropods and respect that, but only up to a certain point (seemingly, like now for some though not me).

 

[asdsdf]

Christian, your response was humorous at some areas, but the true meaning was rather sarcastic, and it was not taken well by some people. They might have been offended. You do understand that right?

I feel that I see faults in both sides of the argument. Yes, it is true that many webpages have this information, but practically anybody can make their own page and bs information. This does not make wikipedia outright wrong. Yes, it does sometimes have incorrect information, but then again, not all of it is.

Although there is no physical evidence that such a mantis exists, that does not rule out the possibilty that there is one. We supposedly have hundreds of thousands of different species we haven't discovered yet, and it is possible that just one mantis speceis just happens to be large. There is no real evidence that it's not possible. Some areas around the globe, perhaps, are the perfect conditions for such a mantis to grow, with little or no natural predators, plenty of food/oxygen, etc. It is almost like the belief of life out of the earth. There are millions or billions of stars out there, lots with their own solar systems. Just because we haven't found any life near the ones around us doesn't mean there isn't any out there. But then again, it doesn't prove there is. We haven't really discovered our Earth all too well as well. In fact, the rainforest have thousands of species, some scientists assume, still waiting to be discovered. Perhaps one is a giant mantis? In other words...you can't just simply toss out the idea that such a mantis exists, however, with no evidence, it is hard to prove it exists. This could be why there are so many skeptics.

Scientifically, yes, they aren't supposed to exist. However, several "scientific" theories that seemed plausible have simply been wiped out. For example, scientists once believed that there were no large insects now because of gravity. They believed that the gravity would cause the insect's exoskeleton implode into itself. It sounds plausible, and people actually believed it. However, this has been proven wrong by fossils of large, for example, dragonflies. However, no one really knows why the insects have gotten smaller, so they have come up with theories. However, theories could be ridiculous, even when made by respected scientists. For example, one scientist believed that the stegasaurus actually rolled up and attacked that way by rolling towards the enemy and hitting them with the spikes :blink: . To me, I don't believe that oxygen has a really large factor on growth. For example, humans have grown taller from their ancestors, even though, as time went on, populations grew so the oxygen levels should have fallen. Anyways, just my opinion.

 

[Christian]

I will have to reply to this, as I can explain some points, but I have to do it later this day, as I am busy at moment.

My tale was a mirror showing the effect of unproven stories. Noone seems to have understood it properly, I fear.