Congratulations to the Orchid Mantis, the Best Invertebrate Glider in the World
Orchid mantis (photo credit: Green Baron Pro, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
I live in Massachusetts, so the only insects I see on my orchids tend to be unwelcome ones, like scale. I’ve never had the opportunity to witness orchids being pollinated in the wild, and until a few days ago, I had never thought about the relationships orchids and non-pollinating insects have. But get this: there’s a mantis that looks like a phalaenopsis orchid bloom. And that mantis can jump and glide through the air to hunt its prey.
What?!
I’m not a huge fan of insects, but this is pretty cool (photo credit: el gaunche via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) has a white and pink body with markings and variations that resemble the shading of a common orchid. Its back legs are shaped like petals. It’s roughly the size of a young phalaenopsis flower as well, with females measuring around 2.5 inches and males around 1 inch. A hunting mantis rocks back and forth to simulate a flower swaying in the breeze. When an interested butterfly, bee, or beetle flies over, the mantis makes its move. Sneaky! Scientists call it “pollinator deception.” The mimicry also helps the mantis evade predators such as birds, which mistake it for a flower.
Unsurprisingly, orchid mantises enjoy the same conditions as most orchids—tropical, warm, and humid. They’re native to Malaysia and like epiphytic orchids, they live on trees. It turns out that the mantis’ unique legs help it cover surprisingly big distances in the air—they function like wings. A recently published study indicates that the mantis can glide over 25 feet, which is 50-200% farther than any other invertebrate scientists know of.
Orchid mantis (photo credit: Frupus via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In the study, researchers also took a dozen mantises over 30 feet into the air and dropped them. They documented on video mantises using their legs to right themselves in the air and then glide for sometimes up to 20 feet. There’s no information yet about whether the mantis will take smaller insects parasailing for a fee.
Apparently, some people keep orchid mantises as pets. To each their own (after all, people keep tarantulas and hissing cockroaches and other terrifying insects and arachnids as pets). One can buy small live insects like flies or crickets and feed them to an orchid mantis with tweezers every few days, preferably in the morning. Orchid mantises can get upset stomachs if they eat too much or eat too late in the day, according to what I saw online. Also, they molt. I almost wonder what that looks like.
I’m cuddly as a kitten, I swear! (photo credit: Lamiot via Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
I get so excited about the 28,000+ species of orchids out there that I don’t often enough stop to appreciate the ways they’ve guided and catalyzed the evolution of various insect species, whether pollinators or mimics or inhabitants. This is just another reason orchids will fascinate me forever.
