Growing up, we heard that it was illegal to harm a praying mantis. I remember worrying that I would step on one by accident and get sent to jail. I needn’t have fretted — it was an ...

A praying mantis has a triangular head with two globe-shaped eyes capping opposite ends. A black dot in the middle of each eye looks like a pupil and, in a way, it is.

A European mantis (Mantis religiosa) eating a black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) in Millwood, Colorado. A European mantis (Mantis religiosa) eating a black-chinned hummingbird ...

In all, they found 147 reports of praying mantises trying to prey upon smaller birds. They found that 12 different species of mantids killed and ate 24 different species of birds, including seven ...

Mantises are elite ambush predators, snatching their victims with a lightning-fast strike of their front limbs. But one newly described species doesn’t just hold its prey in a prickly embrace ...

Praying mantis courtship can be a dangerous affair; females have been well-documented biting off the heads and eating other body parts of the males that they mate with. However, the frequency of ...

You may feel it’s better to give your adult mantis a large container, but here, they’ll struggle to find their prey. A pet praying mantis should be able to find its food quickly, and too large ...

This ruthless praying mantis, which was filmed pouncing on and devouring its prey to earn the title "murder mantis." (Warning: This gets a little nasty.) The murder hornet is dead.

Now, however, for the first time, scientists have documented a praying mantis catching and eating fish. Praying mantises may not actually pray, but they do prey heavily on their fellow insects ...