Praying Mantis catches hummingbird
It sucks being at the bottom of the food chain.
From boingboing. Over at birdwatchersdigest.com a guy
writes about a large praying mantis in his yard that caught and ate a
hummingbird.
The
other day while I was working in the yard my son urgently called to
me. "Dad, a praying mantis caught a hummingbird!" Not sure what to
expect, but knowing my son is not one to tell an untruth, I came running to see
for myself. By the time I arrived it was too late for the poor hummer and
my scientifically minded son had already begun taking pictures and studying the
scene. As you can see from the photographs this hungry mantis captured and
killed a hummingbird not much smaller than itself. The hummer measured 2
inches and the mantis was about the same! The mantis used its spiny left
foreleg to impale the hummingbird through the chest while leaving his right leg
free. Link (down when I tried, perhaps too much
traffic).
Posted: Thu - August 11, 2005 at 11:35 PM