Weekend Spherical-Up: Macabre Praying Mantises, Elaborate Again-Scratchers, And Lacking Blockbusters

The praying mantis is an oddity amongst bugs. It’s giant, however deliberate and methodical in its actions, usually transferring with sluggish care because it approaches its prey. It solely strikes with lightninglike velocity when it strikes – however when it strikes, there are few prey which may escape its scissor-like talons. its giant eyes and cellular head appear to offer it an oddly sentient, if not human, character, and if its romantic habits are disturbing, they’re maybe additionally one thing to which a minimum of some star-crossed and pissed off lovers can relate. It was due to this fact with some horror that I found that the praying mantis is, for all that it may be anthropomorphized, nonetheless a manifestation of that facet of the world which has been known as, “nature, purple in tooth and claw.” Because it seems, the larger mantises can catch birds – hummingbirds, to which nobody however probably the most spiteful may want any unwell – and eat them. The actually macabre bit is that they often simply eat the brains. Scientific American, dependable as at all times, has all of the wow-this-is-worse-than-a-murder-hornet particulars.

– Jack Forster, Editor-in-Chief