Anatomy of a Mantis

​The praying mantis is my favorite insect—and yes, they have their faults, but they deserve more than just care instructions. They need more. I’ve done a lot of research about them and their amazing abilities never stop.

​Every day that I spent with my pets left unanswered questions that kept me motivated for another day. A new morning brought thrilling thoughts to my mind. Would one of my questions be answered today? Or would I have ten more unanswered? I wanted to understand how they moved. How they were able to hunt with such ferocity. So I watched them and wrote about them, tracking how many insects they ate each day and when they molted. I pored over books and websites so that I could try to understand them—so that I could learn from their simple yet effective ways of living. Even still, there is so much unanswered.
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Legs and Arms

The forelegs on a mantis are the front two legs out of all six each insect has. These two legs are the life-bringer for this insect. Without them, the mantis would starve. Without them, the mantis would not be able to the predator that it is. Each of these arms (and legs) are divided into five different parts: the tarsus—which is the very tip of a praying mantis’s foot, which then connects to the tibia, which attaches to the femur, and then to the first joint; the trochanter, and finally leads to the coxa.
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Sight

When you first look at a praying mantis, you assume it only has two eyes. Actually, the insect has five—three of them are located between the antennae. Using all five of their eyes, they can see up to 60 feet away and in a 300 degree field of sight—and all in color!
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Night Vision

A mantis has terrible eyesight in the dark, even though their eyes darken as the light dims, trying to let as much sunlight in as possible.
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The Pseudopupil

If you spend a lot of time around praying mantises, you may begin to notice their head turning as they watch you (a praying mantis is one of the few insects that can turn its head). And your suspicion of being spied on is backed up by the dark ‘pupil’ seen on their two large eyes, facing directly at you! Perhaps they are watching you, but the ‘pupil’ you see is only an illusion—a mere reflection of the light hitting its eye.
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How the Mantis Cleans the Surface of Its Eye

If you happen by a praying mantis purposely scratching its eye, it causes immediate panic. Why in the world is it doing this? To a mantis, ‘scratching’ its eyes are as natural as brushing your hair. This action does not at all harm the praying mantises—in fact it’s cleaning itself. In order to be considered one of the cleanest insects, they have to clean their eyes, too! As it wipes its eyes, the praying mantis uses a little patch underneath its two front legs called the ‘femoral brush’—remember, the femur is a part of a praying mantises leg
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Ears and Hearing

Praying mantids don’t have two ears on the side of their head. In fact they don’t even have two ears. A mantis has only one ear which is located in between the their back legs. And those mantises with one ear are lucky. Some of their own relatives—like flightless females and certain individuals—do not any.
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The Amazing Taste and Smell

The antennae of a mantis is used to smell prey or anything that might be in front of it and the sensory ‘fingers’ located near their mouth are used to taste the prey. They will bite off a chunk of prey (sorry everybody, but it is true) and then their mouth fingers will get to work. The ‘fingers’ role the food around (it looks like chewing) before the mantis swallows.
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Digestion and Drinking

A mantis will eat all of its prey—even the bones, yet they do not ‘throw up’ the inedible parts of their meal like owls do. So what happens to the certain parts of their prey’s body that is not edible? Objects that are not edible are pooped out with uric acid. Unlike most insects, a mantis drinks regularly in order to easily eject the inedible pieces of prey.
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Breathing

On the insects’s sides are many very tiny holes that allow oxygen to enter into the oxygen tubes in their bodies. The spiraling tubes eventually open up into the tracheal tubes, allowing air to flow within the mantis. Being built like that, though, requires good ventilation and if a mantis becomes coated in a thick substance that blocks the air tubes, they will fall over dead.
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​​​Blood Circulation

Like breathing, a mantis has an entirely different way of circulating blood that is unlike how our blood is circulated. For instance, they can live for many days after losing a leg even though they may have lost a lot of blood. A mantis may even live to the next molt which may very well fix the injury by creating a whole new leg! However, the front arms will take more molts to create a replacement arm because they are more complex.