Nature's Wonders

The students in my 6th grade class are collecting insects for one of their science projects. I’m not exactly sure what the goal of the whole project is, but recently they have been busy collecting insects and other small animals during noon break. They put all of these in little plastic cages in the classroom.

Some of the insects don’t get along together too well. During cleaning time the Praying Mantis ate one of the ladybugs. I don’t know what it is about insects devouring each other that fascinates us boys, but the 12 year old inside of me thought it was the coolest thing ever. I called out to the other students. I had a temporary blank on the Japanese word for “Praying Mantis”, so it was a bit of a communication gap, but I called out:
“the lady bug is being eaten. The big green thing with the long arms is eating it. Hurry, you’re going to miss it.”

About 3 boys came running over. We watched the Praying Mantis munch away at what was left of the ladybug for a while, and then the homeroom teacher reminded the students that it was cleaning time.

Minutes later, the Praying Mantis started eating a frog. It was really interesting to watch. I wouldn’t have thought Praying Mantises ate frogs. I mean it was a small frog, but still…

The frog had been in the corner of the cage, and was trying to climb up. Maybe he thought it was a way out. The Praying Mantis was hanging upside down from the ceiling and watching the frog. At first it seemed afraid of the frog and would back up whenever the frog got too close. The frog didn’t even seem to take any notice of the Praying Mantis.

And then, when the frog was jumping up in the air, the Mantis reached out and grabbed it. There was a short struggle, and the Mantis twisted the frog’s body in several ways with its prongs. I thought this was the end of the frog, but it remained alive for a long time afterwards as the Mantis slowly ate it. From time to time the frog would get a fresh burst of energy and try to fry itself, or twist its legs around to try and push the Mantis’s head away. But each time the Mantis simply tightened its grip on the frog and continued eating. It seemed a bit cruel, but I figured this scene is played out thousands of times in nature everyday, so we didn’t intervene.

(I know I’m hardly the first person to say this, but nature is really violent, isn’t it? Makes you wonder about the true character of the universe a bit, doesn’t it?)

I called the boys over to see it. We watched the frog get eaten for a while, and then the homeroom teacher ordered the boys back to work cleaning. Every so often we would come back and check to see how the two were doing. It was really disgusting, and yet really cool to watch at the same time.

The following day, the cage was filled with six Praying Mantises, and we watched them eat each other

Update: The Japan times and me must be on the same page, because they have an article on how interesting it is to watch fall predators in Japan.

Link of the Day
I'm sure most of you have already heard about this, but here is a video of a U .S. Marine shooting and killing an injured, unarmed Iraqi insurgent in a Fallujah mosque. A must watch