Editor’s note:The boar is down! “Monkey Paper” has arrived on my balcony! News of wild animals coming to the city is popping up on social media. In fact, we are surrounded by so many native wild animals that we know very little about. Understanding, friendship, and companionship, all things can live in harmony with each other, and cultivate in their own way. Xinhua Daily·Meeting Point, together with Jiangsu Wildlife Conservation Station, Jiangsu Forestry Research Institute, Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo, etc., launched the “Eye of Mystery · Friends of Humanity” calendar column, which will take you through infrared cameras, animal observers, etc. From the perspective of etc., to pay attention to the familiar and mysterious “animal neighbors”. Biodiversity is the basis of survival and vitality of the human homeland. Every solar term, we will also invite the solar term official to make a special recommendation and broadcast on that day. Today is the mantis species of the twenty-four solar terms. Let’s get to know a kind of insect that is born in accordance with the season – mantis.
Zhang Peichen, the mango solar term official
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Hello everyone, my name is Zhang Peichen, the solar term official of Mang Zhong. I am a fourth grade student from the First Experimental Primary School of Nanjing Xiaozhuang College.
June 6th is the twenty-four solar terms of mango. I would like to introduce an insect that was born in this season and I like very much. It is the mantis.
In ancient my country, the mantis species was divided into three phases: “First, the mantis is born; the second is the bird’s song; the third is the retort.” Yuan Zhen, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, also wrote in “The Poetry of the Twenty-Four Breaths, the May Day of the Mang Seeds”: “Looking at the present day, the mantises are born.
When we go to the countryside, my friends and I like to go to the grass to find the mantis. But it is not easy to find them, because mantises not only have protective colors, but are also experts in mimicry of nature. They can look like flowers, bamboos, green like summer grass, and withered like autumn leaves. It’s amazing!
Understand, be friendly, and accompany, the earth is the common home of human beings and wild animals, let us protect it together!
Born “Quick Knife”
The mantis, also known as the knife beetle, is distributed all over the world except the polar regions, and there are about 2,000 known species in the world. Because praying mantises always put their two forearms in front of their chests, as if they were praying, they are also called prayer bugs in the West.
Although the morphology of praying mantises varies by species, there are several distinguishing features: a flexible inverted triangular head, a pair of compound eyes on either side of the head, and three monocular eyes arranged in a triangle between the two compound eyes. They have a pair of well-developed sickle-shaped forelegs with sharp thorns, which bend and hold their chests high when they rest.
The perfect body structure makes mantises good hunters. Praying mantises can turn their heads freely 360 degrees, allowing them to see six ways and stare in all directions at any time. Mantises have developed compound eyes and form binocular vision, which enables them to accurately measure distances and use their forefoot “sharp blades” to raid and capture prey in a very short time (< 0.1 s). When the mantis encounters danger, it will raise its forearm to intimidate the enemy.
beautiful mimetic master
Praying mantises are very good at camouflage. The mantises we see are basically green, yellow, and brown, because the mantises living around us mainly inhabit grasses and shrubs.
To protect themselves and lurking in the environment to hunt, praying mantises have evolved a variety of mimicry. Some species of praying mantises with specific morphology and bright body color have high ornamental value. For example, the famous orchid mantis is very beautiful and eye-catching in the order Mantis. They live in tropical rain forests in Southeast Asia, and their legs have evolved petal-like structures and colors, which look like an orchid, and can adjust the color of their bodies with the depth of the flower color to blend in with the environment.
There is also a dead leaf mantis that looks like a dead leaf. It looks like a real dead leaf from a distance. It is natural in its habitat. Their legs also resemble the petioles of remnant leaves, and even the “leaf veins” and “leaf meridians” are clearly visible.
Natural enemies of agricultural pests
The life of a praying mantis is divided into three stages: egg, larva (nymph), and adult. After conception, the female praying mantis will find a flat ground or branch to secrete a foamy substance, which is synthesized by the glands in her abdomen and hardens to form a shelter called “egg sheath”, which is built for the little mantis. baby room. Often found on tree trunks, dead branches or stone walls, it looks like an inconspicuous tree knot or mud block, which can play a good concealment role. Baby praying mantises (nymphs) go through 5-10 molts in their lifetime.
Mantis is the natural enemy of a variety of agricultural pests. It can prey on more than 40 kinds of pests, such as flies, mosquitoes, locusts, moths and butterflies and their larvae, small insects such as naked pupae and crickets, and large insects such as cicadas, locusts, and katydids. Praying mantises are aggressive by nature. They not only eat other insects, but even small snakes and mice, which are food in the eyes of mantises. They also eat the same kind, and sometimes the female mantises will directly eat the male mantises they mate with after mating.
Written by: Snow White
Editor: Cao Jiarui
Image: Visual China