Praying Mantis Devours Hummingbird in Shocking Photo

National Geographic ^ | JUNE 16, 2017 | Shaena Montanari

[nickcarraway]

The rare photograph reveals a grisly backyard scene—and the intense appetite of mantises.

While praying mantises aren’t the target visitors for a hummingbird feeder, a startling photo shows that they might come around anyway—but not for the sugar water.

Several years ago, New Mexico resident and former National Park Service ranger Tom Vaughan spotted a bizarre sight at a backyard bird feeder: a dead hummingbird in the clutches of a praying mantis, the insect feeding on the bird’s carcass.

Nibbling on one hummingbird clearly wasn’t enough for the ravenous mantis. “After this shot, the mantis dropped the bird, crawled across the underside of the plastic feeder, came up on the other side and prepared to nab another hummer,” Vaughan wrote in a June 4 Facebook comment describing the photograph.

Mantises are surprisingly ferocious insects; scientists have previously seen them attacking and feasting on a variety of hummingbird species. Although it has happened before, it is rarely caught on camera. “It was probably what we would call a lucky shot,” says Kevin McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY.

The photograph is so remarkable, in fact, that it will be included in an upcoming publication about the predation of birds by praying mantises in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, according to a statement Vaughan posted to Facebook on June 4.

INSATIABLE INSECTS

McGowan notes he has seen mantises stalking hummingbird feeders before, but has never witnessed an attack. Anecdotal accounts of these insects devouring hummingbirds are brutal: Mantises have been seen impaling the chest of the bird, dangling it by its legs, or in the case of this photo, grabbing it by the skull and feeding on its head.

Other descriptions of mantises eating hummingbirds note that the insect usually starts by grabbing the bird at the neck, surprising it while it is feeding on a flower or at a feeder.

Once the bird is subdued, the mantis slowly nibbles along the neckline and keeps at it for hours until most of the flesh is gone. “They have to chew through all that fluff, so I’m not surprised they go for the head,” McGowan adds.

Hummingbirds are likely the only birds that a mantis would be able to catch: “Hummingbirds are tiny, five or six grams—less than a nickel,” McGowan says, adding that mantises are about the same size.

Only about four inches long, mantises have also been known to ambush mice, feast on lizards, and violently cannibalize members of their own species. Generally, though, their meals of choice are other smaller insects, especially pollinating insects such as bees.

In fact, McGowan says that hummingbirds’ pollinator-like knack for buzzing around and sipping nectar may well make them all the more attractive to mantises. “If you act like a bee and you’re in those places, that starts to put you at risk for getting hit by a predator,” he says.

[nickcarraway]

Well neat! Just got an email from a professor in Switzerland who wants to use one of my photographs as an illustration in a paper to be published in the "Wilson Journal of Ornithology!" Dr. Martin Nyffeler's paper, coauthored with two U.S. professors, is titled "Bird Predation by Praying Mantises: A Global Perspective." It appears that the lovely little hummingbirds that have just recently returned to our feeder are primary targets for those little insects: "Most reports (.70% of observed incidents) are from the USA, where mantids have often been seen capturing hummingbirds attracted to food sources in gardens, i.e., hummingbird feeders or hummingbird-pollinated plants. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) was the species most frequently reported to be captured by mantids>" I call this "You're next!"

[originalbuckeye]

I saw an absolutely creepy Criminal Minds episode where the Unsub was killing and eating people, acting like a praying mantis. I cannot think about praying mantises without thinking about that episode.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Ruby Throated makes sense, they are more common in areas with good mantis populations. Here in New Mexico, the most common hummers are Black Chinned, Broad Tailed, and Rufous with the occasional Anna’s and Calliope thrown in. However, I cannot recall the last time I saw a mantis here in the East Mountains (Manzanos and Sandias east of Albuquerque) Possibly too dry, or the lizards make short work of them.

[xp38]

Nature can be cruel.

[Magnatron]

The human version of the same:

[JPG]

Nature can be cruel.

Nature says: Ya gotta eat!

[fso301]

Pretty cool.

[muleskinner]

If you did, you "Better Call Saul".

Or Ehrmantraut. He can deal with low-life Mantids.

[FreedomStar3028]

No half measures, either.

Except that once.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Yes, it seriously cool. Check out these more exotic manti.

[muleskinner]

Dittos

[boomop1]

I have beheaded a few standing on my bird feeder

[RckyRaCoCo]

“I’ve got a mantis in my pantis!”

[Fai Mao]

I have applauded them standing on our banana plants catching banana skipper moths and also eating the 3 1/2 inch long caterpillars.

There are no humming birds here. Thanks to the tree snakes there are not many birds of any kind

[boomop1]

Snakes got birds a long time ago, I flew many missions out of Guam in the early 70s.

[Seruzawa]

They are insects. They’ll kill and eat anything they are capable of killing. They can’t be reasoned with. They can’t be bargained with. And they absolutely WILL NOT STOP until you are dead!

[ColdOne]

Cool!

[Rusty0604]

This is your photograph they are talking about in the article?

[lgjhn23]

“....They are insects. They’ll kill and eat anything they are capable of killing. They can’t be reasoned with. They can’t be bargained with. And they absolutely WILL NOT STOP until you are dead!...”

Yeah, libs are something else. It’s a mental disease.

[jmacusa]

The Ruby Throat is the only Hummingbird species east of The Mississippi. We get them here on The Jersey Shore. Cute little buggers. I have Praying Mantis's in my garden. Never seen one take a Hummingbird but they're hell on Japanese beetles.