News That Stays News

Losing my head July 29, 2014

The last couple of days have been unexpectedly busy, so I don’t have enough brain power for a big post.  Instead, here’s a curiosity for your entertainment:

That’s right, it’s a headless (also front-leg-less) praying mantis, demonstrating that it still has enough nervous system left to stay balanced and hold onto its perch.  (I find this more impressive than a chicken running around with its head cut off, but I don’t know that it actually is.)

As to how the praying mantis got to be headless in the first place, I don’t know.  Praying mantises are infamous for sexual cannibalism, but the situation is (naturally) more complicated than that.  Females do not always (or even frequently) cannibalize their mates, and mantises sometimes eat each other when sex is not part of the equation.