Walking violin
| Walking violin | ||||||||||||
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Walking violin ( Gongylus gongylodes ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Gongylus gongylodes | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The walking violin ( Gongylus gongylodes ) is a catching horror (Mantodea) and looks like an eaten, dry leaf.
description
This species owes its German name to its exterior, which, viewed from above, is reminiscent of the body of a violin. The rump is wide and flat. The front part of the thorax is extremely thin and long and looks like a stem-like neck that condenses into a diamond shape just in front of the head, to which the canine legs attach. Their body color is beige, brown and even black. Males reach a size of 7–8 cm, females are usually slightly larger at 8–9 cm. The females have thread-like antennae , while those of the males are pinnate.
All six legs have leaf-like outgrowths. The front legs of the walking violin have been converted into heavily thorny catch legs . The hip links are greatly elongated and simply shaped. The fishing scissors themselves consist of the thigh (femur) and splint (tibia). The thigh is longer than the hip joint and has seven thorns on the outside and up to thirty on the inside of the scissors, one long and three short ones in a row. This makes it one of the two mantodea species with the most thorns on the thigh.
distribution
The species comes from Southeast Asia , mainly Sri Lanka , Java , Thailand and India . There they live in primary and secondary tropical rainforests on bushes and shrubs.
The walking violin itself is not considered to be threatened, but its habitat is in danger due to human overpopulation.
Way of life
Walking violins are very compatible with one another. They hang immobile upside down on branches and are well camouflaged by their leaf-like appearance. They hunt flying insects by grabbing unsuspecting prey with their catch legs.
They lay their eggs in packets ( oothecae ) of 30–40 pieces each on the underside of thick branches. 15–35 nymphs hatch from this after four to five weeks. Female walking violins are adult within three to five months after moulting six times and live to be eight to twelve months old. Male animals are adult after only five moults and therefore achieve a life cycle of only three to five months.
Walking violin and human
The walking fiddle is not known to be a pest or beneficial insect. Occasionally the species is kept in the terrarium as a hobby animal . Like all terrors, it needs a lot of light and warmth.
literature
- Hartmut Greven, Marcel Brenner: On the morphology and behavior of the "walking violin" Gongylus gongylodes (Linné, 1758) (Mantodea, Empusidae). In: Entomologie heute , 21, 2009, pp. 63–76
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Frankfurt Zoological Garden: Animals in the zoo from A – Z. Walking violin. ( Memento from February 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c d e f g Mantids: Mantodea - Wandering Violin Mantid (gongylus Gongylodes): Species Accounts. Animal Life Resource: Insects and Spiders Scientific Reference - Vol 1.
- ↑ Frederick R. Prete, Lawrence E. Hurd: The Praying Mantids. JHU Press, 1999 ISBN 9780801861741
Web links
- www.mantodea.speciesfile.org - Taxonomic database of the Mantodea
- Images of Walking Leaves ( Memento from November 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )