It’s pretty neat considering the horror stories I keep reading about them. The native bees around here also out compete the European honey bees. The only time I see them is in early Spring when the clover patches are blooming and late summer when the Autumn Clematis is blooming. And even then, I still see native Bombus sp. outnumbering them. Perhaps not enough bee keepers around? But I dig it.
Mantids are ambush predators and they hang out around flowers or even hummingbird feeders. I’m guessing they are catching the birds while they are distracted with feeding.
2 Likes
Dragonflies have the highest success rate of any animal as predators. They probably have superior eyesight. Have you ever held a hummingbird at a banding station? They weigh next to nothing. They really don’t have any defense. I would imagine that, if they were low on energy, that a dragonfly would have a chance to munch on them.
Here is a good video on dragonflies and their abilities. I think they could easily out-fly a hummingbird. Having said all of that, I would bet it doesn’t happen that often. Only the big dragonflies are capable of taking down a hummingbird.
3 Likes
I love that video!!! So informative and easy to follow… Thank you!
1 Like
Aye yeah this is honestly? Why I think Dragonhunters are just, one of the objectively coolest animals to ever exist. They’re the predator of the single most successful predators in earth’s history
I would really like to see someone study this topic scientifically. Due to the varied behaviors of mantids, and how they’re kinda opportunistic in what they choose to eat (i.e. they seem to eat anything that moves that is small enough for them to kill), it seems like you would need to do a really systematic study to figure something like this out.
My intuition though is that I bet there are plenty of larger birds or perhaps other animals that would happily eat them even when fully grown. Kestrels regularly eat large insects, as do things like Blue Jays, and they regularly take on things a lot more dangerous. I’d imagine Mockingbirds would have no trouble with them. Given how brutally Mockingbirds and Blue Jays can fight each other as well as fight off threats to the nest, I’d imagine any of these would take out the large mantids with relative ease. And then there are larger things like crows, I bet they might eat them opportunistically too. And who knows about mammals. Given how these things are slow moving and often near the ground, I’d imagine lots of mammals could easily snag them from time to time too.
So, if I had to guess, I would guess that they probably don’t have a huge effect on the ecosystem, and they’re probably held in check by existing cycles and balances. But I could be wrong.
Another thought I had, usually adding more different kinds of something to the system will increase its total extent. So for example, if you add more Elymus species to a region, you will have more total growth of Elymus species because they all colonize slightly different niches. So I’d imagine with the mantids, that adding in the two species (there are now three in the eastern US correct? one from East Asia, one from Europe, and the native one?) would increase the total extent and numbers of mantids in the ecosystem…as well as increasing the things that like to eat them and perhaps decreasing the things they like to eat. And I’d imagine that they probably decrease the species of the native mantids by competition, but that the total mantid population is now higher than it was before, as that is usually the way things work.
But we won’t really know until someone studies this rigorously.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.