Talk:Mantis

Merged with praying mantis?

I don't think this should be merged with Praying mantis. I think that Praying mantis should be merged with Mantidae. The reason it's in the current state that it is, is that when I stumbled on it, Mantodea and Mantidae either didn't exist or redirected to Praying mantis. I tried to clean up those, and just pasted in the front paragraph from this. If people who actually understand the taxonomy can fix it that would be great. Wikibofh 04:13, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) i think this is really fun!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.189.246.49 (talk) 20:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How large are mantises?

How large are the largest and smallest species of mantises? If they can eat reptiles and mammals, then they must be pretty big, I would think. Someone please add this info. SpectrumDT 22:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The longest mantid species is Ischnomantis gigas, from Africa. It can be up to 17 cm long!! However, this mantid species mimics sticks so it is quite slender. Other mantids species like those belonging to the genus Hierodula may be up to 12 cm long and their stout-built body makes them look massive (specially if it is a gravid female). The smallest mantid I have seen so far belong to the South American genus Mantoida (like M. luteola). They can be 1 cm. long! Small mantids are not uncommon and many genera includes some remarkable small species like in Mantellias, Bantiella, etc, etc, etc...

No mention of..

Mantis-style Kung Fu. Seeing as it was developed through years of observation of the mantes, it warrants a note. TKarrde 15:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Check out Praying_mantis_(disambiguation), where links to both styles are provided. Wikibofh_(talk) 17:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, didn't see that. Good call. :) TKarrde 11:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Habitat

Some info on habitat and distribution would be appreciated 195.131.179.43 20:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Mantidae/Mantodea

I think the pages should be merged as Mantodea is the order and Mantidae the family, so Mantidae is a part of Mantodea. I added the information on the largest and smallest mantids on the 'praying mantis' page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.181.254 (talk • contribs) 11:47, March 25, 2006

• I disagree. If we do that, we lose the logical links to all the families under Mantodea that aren't mantidae. It's why it's a hierarchy. Wikibofh_(talk) 14:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well it's currently jolly difficult for the reader. Perhaps the rel'ship between the three articles Mantidae, Mantodea and Praying mantis could be made more overt. Currently the latter two seem to be in parallel. JackyR | Talk 01:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've looked again, and I exagerate, but a it is still confusing... JackyR | Talk 01:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

For me, I don't see the confusion, since I just look at the taxobox on the right. *shrug* Wikibofh_(talk) 02:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge

The relationship between the three articles (Mantidae, Mantodea and Praying mantis) and whether all three are needed is open to debate. But all Mantodea are praying mantids and all praying mantids are Mantodea. Is there any explanation for this not having been merged long ago? House of Scandal 20:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• The classic conflict between the decision to use the common name as a matter of style in wikipedia and the desire to make taxonomies non-insane. Wikibofh_(talk) 20:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• ...and actually, all of Mantodea are not Praying mantis, although all praying mantids are of mantodea. That is why there are a bunch of families listed here other than Mantidae. Wikibofh_(talk) 00:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Impending reorganization

I am preparing to finally go ahead with merging the text from the Praying mantis article into this article, since the two are treated as synonymous, and much of the information redundant. "Praying mantis" will become either a simple redirect to Mantodea, or a disambiguation page that lets readers choose whether to go to Mantodea, or directly to Mantis religiosa. I'm inclined to go the former route, since it seems to be a more common usage to consider ANY member of the order to be a "praying mantis". If this is of concern to you, the place for expressing opinions is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arthropods#Mantid/Mantis/Mantidae/Mantodea/Praying Mantis. Dyanega 18:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Cannibalism in reproduction

It cannot be claimed that cannibalism of male mantids by females occurs naturally in the field, as it may also be caused by a distraction in normal courtship behaviours, by the human, whether in the field or lab. The only paper since Liske and Davis i know of was by Lawrence in 1992, but the evidence for natural cannibalism in the field was not convincing. For example, a decrease in the male population relative to females occurs in many insect species, not because of cannibalism but because they disperse in search of females so face other hazards. Is there a later paper more convincing to prove it occurs naturally in the field?--Lauriec 02:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC) I have many praying mantis is my garden every year with obviously males and females as we get lots of babies too. Yesterday for the first time I saw a mantis with no head and next to it another mantis eating its head! the beheaded mantis appeared to be still alive but not too well165.118.1.51 (talk) 04:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)melissa watts 12/11/2009 Western Australia melwatts123@hotmail.com

Other species

It seems this article is focused solely on praying mantises, even though the opening sentence states, "The order Mantodea (which includes the praying mantis) consists of approximatively 2,300 species, of which a majority are in the family Mantidae." Is there any information on the insects in the other families? All those articles seem to be one-line stubs. howcheng {chat} 16:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC) Answer: The species "praying mantis" is also known as the "European praying mantis" is just one species in the order of Mantodea. When this article refers to the "praying mantis" it is technically just referring to a certain species, not the entire family. When it refers to the insect as a "mantis," it is then referring to the entire family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.249.110.159 (talk) 19:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. The introduction is explicit to avoid just this confusion: "A colloquial name for the order is "praying mantises", because of the typical "prayer-like" stance, although the term is often misspelled as "preying mantis" since mantises are predatory. In Europe, the name "praying mantis" refers to Mantis religiosa." Just because Europeans limit the use of a common name to a single species does not mean everyone else does (other similar examples include the names "hornet" and "wasp", which are understood universally outside of Europe to refer to a wide variety of species). Global colloquial use trumps regional idiosyncrasies, especially when the terminology is generalized. Dyanega (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I guess I never got around to this, and it's long overdue. The situation is simple enough: ALL members of the order are "mantises". Only members of the family Mantidae are "mantids". The term "praying mantis" is used by lots of people to refer to any sort of mantis - not restricted to any one family, or any one species, in its colloquial use. But, this colloquial use is horribly sloppy and confusing, and ideally should be discouraged, especially since there IS one species - the European mantis, that DOES use "praying mantis" as its common name. That particular conflict is going to be impossible to resolve to everyone's satisfaction except through the use of dablinks. All that being said, the first step is eliminating the existence of "praying mantis" as a stand-alone article, and converting it to a redirect here to Mantodea, because the generalized colloquial use, though woefully inappropriate, is far more common than the restricted use of the term for just the European mantis. The reverse idea, of merging Mantodea under praying mantis, is a far worse alternative because it promotes the sloppy overgeneralized use of "praying mantis" - which is technically and scientifically undesirable. Dyanega (talk) 01:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Merger finalized

It turns out that "mantis" was only a dabpage, so I moved its content to Mantis (disambiguation) and turned Mantodea into a redirect. That results in the smallest possible number of redirect links. Hopefully this will be satisfactory enough that no one will feel compelled to undo it. Dyanega (talk) 01:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

To facilitate tracking, here are links to the "orphaned" article/talk histories created by this move and merge:

Mantodea article history Mantodea talk page history Praying mantis article history Praying mantis talk page Praying mantis talk page history

Dyanega (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Statilia parva

There’s a Statilia sp. of mantis being cultivated in North America and Europe that people are calling S. parva. Online research shows no record of this scientific name outside of the hobby nor older than 2 years. While this is probably a case of synonymy impossible to unravel without access to print sources (probably geschrieben auf Deutsch), I am do worry that maybe someone just confused two species or otherwise effectively "made up" this name circa 2006. Can anyone insect-savvy editors offer insight? I have two ooths in my possession and would like to know more. - House of Scandal (talk) 18:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Photos

Skoch3 (talk) 07:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC): OK, I am guessing there are thousands of good praying mantis photos out there. But thought I would link a decent one I got today

in case anyone knows what species it is and wants to fix it up. It's on a gray-ish background (concrete), so maybe it wouldn't be too hard to make the background go away.

Ear

I had to learn from The Onion that the mantis has only one ear?? Surely we ought to mention this. Can someone who has some knowledge of mantis physiology put in a word or two about the ear? --Doradus (talk) 17:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That's only one species of mantis - other species have no ears, or two ears. To discuss all of the different cases would require a rather large chunk of text, and it would probably have to be plagiarized from this website, which goes into gruesome detail. Dyanega (talk) 00:54, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Legal status in the United States seems inaccurate

The article claims that "non-native species are illegal to possess and release in the United States, under the Non Native Invasive Species Act of 1992." A search of the acts of the 102nd, 103rd and 104th Congress on thomas.gov reveals no bills with that title. A general Google search on the phrase "Non Native Invasive Species Act" only turns up references to this Wikipedia article itself.

The closest statutory citation I can find to this issue is the "Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Act" Senate Bill 2679 of the 102nd Congress, enacted in 1992. This statute relates only to the State of Hawaii, and not to the United States in general. See http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:s2679:

BrianStanding (talk) 12:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)Brian Standing

Portal:Mantodea

Just to let you guys know, I have created the Mantodea portal. Any contributions are welcomed. ZooFari 04:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Dots in eyes

I was hoping to find an answer to the question "What are those black dots in their eyes?" in the article, yet there was no mention of it (I presumed it was some high-resolution area similar to the macula in human eyes). However, I found an answer here: [1] I think this should be included in the article, yet with verification from reliable sources. --94.220.146.227 (talk) 14:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing. Apparently we do need some info on the eyes. I'll search for actual reliable sources and maybe gets some info on the eyes included. ZooFari 15:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was page not moved. —harej (talk) (cool!) 06:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

Mantis → Praying mantis — per WP:COMMONNAME. A quick search shows that the term "praying mantis" is used almost exclusively while "mantis" in of itself is rarely used alone. Thoughts?. — ^{\`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`/} (talk • contribs) 09:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Since this article is about an order of insects, and not a single species, I'm going to have to oppose this move.-- 12:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

• The praying mantis stricto sensu is a single species, which we call European mantis, according to us. If we are (this time) a reliable source, it would seem better to move that article, adding a sentence to say that praying mantis is also used of mantides in general (as I'm sure it is). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Praying mantis is ambiguous, and should be a DAB page, not a redirect and certainly not an article. Andrewa (talk) 15:16, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Both "mantis" and "praying mantis" are ambiguous terms. I would move Mantis to Mantodea and Mantis (disambiguation) to Mantis. --Una Smith (talk) 20:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Cannibalism picture?

The picture of a female Tenodera sinensis supposedly eating her mate actually shows her eating a long horned grasshopper. I do not know how to change the misleading text under the picture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HeyPK (talk • contribs) 06:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

23 September 2010 At 2200 Mantis mating and eating male. Cannibalism while mating —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ad4mhughes (talk • contribs) 03:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Introduced species in the U.S.

There are at least three introduced species. Along with the European mantid, Mantis religiosa, and the common Chinese mantid, Tenodera aridifolia sinensis, there is a closely related species, Tenodera angustipennis, that closely resembles T. sinensis. HeyPK (talk) 06:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Gallery removed

I have removed the gallery from the article. For some reason, this articles gets filled with too many images irrelevant to the sections or the article, and appear to be only random species with no emphasis of the subject of the article. It has become a target for featured pictures as well that do not represent this article as well as others do. If you'd like to revert, you may, but I think it'[s best for the article. ZooFari 06:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'd love to see a listing of (or a link to a Wiki article on a) specific species which would then include a pic of that species. I found a mottled gray praying mantis in Abingdon, Maryland the other day & have been unable to ID the species. I've lived in MD most of my life & have never seen this species. I don't know what the standard is for this on Wiki-- if other insect familes on Wiki list genera &/or species. Thanks.SaturnCat (talk) 01:46, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Susceptible to slugs?

The article has this unsourced claim: "praying mantises are particularly susceptible to an enzyme found in the mucus excreted by slugs". Anyone know where this came from? Some quick web searches don't appear to support it.Jdannan (talk) 01:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

• Nonsense edit. Now removed. Dyanega (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure? The reason I'm asking is that we had a captive mantis, I fed it a small slug (there being little else this time of year) and it promptly died! No joke, it really did. First thing I did was google and find this page. It is possible the mantis was on its last legs anyway, but the coincidence is a bit odd.Jdannan (talk) 10:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Mantis eggs

A simple question, do female mantis lay eggs even if they are not mated? I can't think what the word is but, is it possible that some species can reproduce without mating? I suppose its possible in most animals but would like to know if is possible in a praying mantis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.150.23 (talk) 15:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I know from personal experience that female praying mantis will lay sterile egg cases, but no original research right? --Sunao —Preceding undated comment added 01:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC).

It should mention what kind of bugs it eats.

Or maybe the answer is "all of them that are small enough" Tisane ^talk/_stalk 03:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

First three sentences of this article are highly highly suspect

The first three sentences of this article are highly, highly suspect. They currently read as follows: "Shaun Butler was actually the first known species of praying mantis, believed to have lived sometime between 4 and 6 A.D. Shortly after the birth of his baby Praying Manti, his head was removed by his wife (and eaten) as a sign of incompetence and lack of manliness. This act subseqeutnly started the common known ritual of female praying manti removing the heads of their mate after giving birth to their babies."

````alitza — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alitza1 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)