Leaf mantis
| Leaf mantis | ||||||||||||
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Leaf mantis ( Acanthops falcata ), female |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Acanthops falcata | ||||||||||||
| Stål , 1877 |
The leaf mantis ( Acanthops falcata ) is a fishing insect from the Acanthopidae family . It is also known as boxer mantis , although this trivial name is also used in whole or in part for other fishing horrors , such as the Indian boxer mantis ( Ephestiasula rogenhoferi ). The very peculiar species, which imitates a withered leaf, gained a certain fame because of its sexual dimorphism, which is also strongly pronounced for muzzle horrors .
features
Both the female and the male of the leaf mantis can reach a body length of usually around 50, at most around 60 millimeters, which means that both sexes can achieve the same body dimensions, which is unusual for muzzle fright. These dimensions make the leaf mantis one of the smaller representatives of the order. Apart from the body length, as already mentioned in the introduction, both sexes are very different from each other. The female, unlike other catch horrors, also has an upwardly curved abdomen as an imago , imitating a rolled leaf. In contrast to the juveniles of fishing horrors, in which the wings have so far only been developed as beginnings, the wings of the adult female of the leaf mantis completely cover the abdomen. However, as with other fishing horrors, the female is not able to fly here either. As a threatening gesture typical for terrors, the female does not show warning signals on the second pair of wings, but on the upper side of the abdomen, which is otherwise covered by the wings, consisting of red components. The female is more massive than its male counterpart and can reach a body weight of 400 to 500 milligrams. The male is built much narrower and has fully developed and longer wings, which makes it airworthy in contrast to the female. It weighs about 200 milligrams. Both sexes have a variable basic color, which can range from yellow to peach-red to black. The leaf mantis, along with some other species, including the dead leaf ( Deroplatys lobata ), the walking violin ( Gongylus gongylodes ) or the ghost mantis ( Phyllocrania paradoxa ), are among the terrors that imitate a withered leaf. One speaks of mimesis . As with some other fishing horrors, the eyes of this species are tapered towards the top.
Occurrence
The leaf mantis is common in South America . She prefers to inhabit rainforests .
Way of life
In their way of life, the leaf mantis resembles many other fishing horrors. It lives well camouflaged as a stalker in its habitat and usually waits motionless for prey passing by. These are grasped in a matter of milliseconds with the thorny tentacles and then consumed. The prey animals of the leaf mantis are predominantly other arthropods , which can reach a maximum of the hunter's own body size. While the male uses his ability to fly when encountering a potential predator to flee, the female shows the warning colors on the abdomen by opening the wings and holding the color towards the predator.
Reproduction
The reproductive behavior of the leaf mantis has so far been studied mainly in captivity. The female needs nine moults to adulthood, while the male only needs eight. Also, the female does not reach sexual maturity until two to three weeks after the last moult, the male already one to two weeks after the adult moult. At dusk, the female attracts males, like other fishing horrors, using pheromones . Thanks to its ability to fly, it can find a female and approach it. The pairing can take a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of an hour. Cannibalism during mating on the part of the female does not usually occur in the leaf mantis. Nevertheless, the male tries to flee as quickly as possible after mating. After that, the female lays up to 15 fertilized oothecae in an interval of eight days , which have a dark brown color and an elongated shape and with a length of a good 60 millimeters can be the same length as the female. An ootheca can contain a maximum of 60 eggs, but most ooths have 25 to 35 eggs. Three to four weeks after being laid, the three to four millimeter large young hatch from an ootheca and grow within two months. The female of the leaf mantis can achieve a lifespan of a maximum of 1.5, the male one of one year.
Systematics
The first descriptor Carl Stål gave the leaf mantis the name Acanthops falcata when it was first described in 1877 . It was given the name Acanthops angulifera as a synonym by John Obadiah Westwood in 1889 and the name Acanthops griffini from Ermanno Giglio-Tos in 1915 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Mike & Peggy Briggs: Encyclopedia of the Animals: what is worth knowing about the most famous animal species in the world 1st edition. Parragon Books Ltd, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8289-3848-9 , p. 375.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Description and husbandry report of the leaf mantis on the website of M&M Wüst ( Link ).
- ↑ a b c d e f g Michael H. & Barbara Robinson: "Culture Techniques for Acanthops Falcata, a Neotropical Mantid Suitable for Biological Studies (With Notes on Raising Web Building Spiders)", 1978, report on Die Blattmantis ( PDF ).
- ↑ Systematics of the leaf mantis on the website of Mantodea Species File ( Link )