The baby praying mantis on my screen door was the size of a grain and already still. The baby praying mantis is the nymph that hunts like the adult from day one, just smaller and easier to miss.
Imagine someone throwing you into the air and spinning two-and-a-half times in a second. This is what it’s like for these little insects, who use their rotational skills to avoid crashing onto the ground after being thrown up by predators or other causes.
This is like asking an ice skater to stop rotating suddenly and accurately face a specific direction, said Malcolm Burrows of the University of Cambridge in a press release accompanying his report published in Current Biology.
Dragonflies, too, can perform awesome aerial stunts. In slow motion, they look pretty cool as well!
The baby praying mantis hunts like the adult from day one, just smaller. It is easy to miss and worth the second look.
