MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE: PRAYING MANTIS (DEAD AND DRIED-UP)

stephenpaul (54)Memberin WORLD OF XPILAR • 4 years ago

HELLO EVERYONE 💚

WELCOME TO MY BLOG ONCE MORE

This post is in line with the macro photography challenge by @sultan-aceh. Thanks for the initiative.

I decided to queue in to this challenge with an entry of a dead and dried up praying Mantis!

I know its kinda of crazy I chose to make my entry with this. But don't get me wrong, this is a matter of concern! At first, I was shocked because I don't think I've ever seen a Mantis dead in that way.

My first guess was that it might have probably been killed by a spider but on a second thought, there could be more reasons than that. So this made me do a little research about the likely reasons for a Mantis to end up this dead and dried up.

Obviously, the Mantis is a prey and can die at the hands of anthropods, amphibians, reptiles and small birds. But you might be surprised that they might be attacked by parasites and eaten from the inside?!

I never knew that! And I'm a little bit certain this particular reason might be the case of the dead Mantis I saw.

However, those are not the only reasons. They could as well be infected by microbial pathogens such as bacteria, virus etc. Also, starvation and dehydration can be a serious cause of death for the Mantis.