Praying Mantis
Grace W.
Food
A praying mantis eats anything smaller than its self. I thought the most interesting fact I learned was that one praying mantis eats the other praying mantis. A praying mantis uses camouflage to blend in with its surroundings. A praying mantis uses its front legs to crush its prey. A praying mantis eats only alive prey. Lastly a praying mantis eats butterfly's,crickets,moths,frogs,and more.
Body
A praying mantis has 3 body parts one called the head another called the thorax the last one called the abdomen. The head is connected to the abdomen and the thorax sometimes has wings and legs that is also connects to the thorax. The abdomen is connected to nothing at all. But the head is connected to the thorax.
Life Cycle
A praying mantis has 3 stages it goes through. The first one is egg, the second one is nymph and the third one is adult. First of all the praying mantis egg case looks wooden but it is not wooden it almost feels squishy when you touch it with a stick. When the praying mantis hatches out of its egg case they call the praying mantises a nymph. Lastly when the praying mantis is an adult it can do more things like hunt for its food because when it was a nymph it was not able to hunt.
Babies
Most praying mantises make 2 or 3 egg cases and it takes about an hour. A praying mantis lays there eggs in fall and they hatch them in the spring.Another thing is that a praying mantis lays at least 10-100 eggs at separate times. When a praying mantis has its eggs, the baby's all try to eat each other. When the praying mantis looks just like the adult praying mantises but a little bit smaller.
Intresting Facts
A praying mantis is as big as a child's finger. There are over 1,800 kinds of praying mantises all over the world. I thought the most interesting fact was that a female praying mantis bits the male praying mantises head off. Another thing I thought was cool was that a praying mantis egg case looks wooden but when you touch it with a stick it almost feels squishy. Lastly when the praying mantises is in its egg case it shakes a little but not that often and I think it looks like the praying mantises are having a dance party.