Wearing two rooster feathers, a green robe and two saw knives, the bug ran away desperately.

The withered and hungry poachers rushed past at lightning speed, and the locusts were still quietly attached to the twigs a few inches away, unaware. Then, the poacher suddenly jumped on him again, caught the prey in one twentieth of a second, put it in the front limb of the saw blade, clamped it tightly, and then bit off its neck. This is what French entomologist Fables called "the latent demon of living things"-mantis.

As early as the early days of human society, people expressed their awe and concern about the discovery of mantis. Their upright forelegs seem to be praying, their protruding eyes reveal a clever breath, and their heads can turn at will-it is these characteristics that make the ancient Greeks give it a name with divination, prophecy and prophetic significance-mantis.

Mantis exists in tropics, subtropics and temperate zones, with more than 800 species of/kloc-0. Apart from the huge front legs, the most obvious features of mantis are its flexible head and compound eyes. Its eyes can stare at any moving target in front of it, but other insects can't do this even if they break their heads. This pair of big compound eyes grow on a wide skull, which enables gladiators to better measure the distance of their prey. These eyes can be quickly adjusted to adapt to the changes in the intensity of bright sunlight or light shining on leaves at dawn and dusk. But mantis is a diurnal creature and has no visual ability to adapt to night activities. It has a pupil-like dot in each eye, which looks like a shooting hole for its prey.

Mantis spiders only prey on live prey, only insects living in flowers, leaves, branches or underground, and never prey on flying prey. Although many kinds of mantis have wings, they hardly use them.

Mantis sometimes even preys on prey bigger than itself. But its mouth is surprisingly small, just like its ancestor cockroach. In order to catch the prey and expand the range of activities, mantis's front legs are greatly elongated, and its external skeleton structure is quite delicate and extremely hard. At the same time, there are several rows of hard and sharp teeth, and a sharp claw shaped like an ancient Turkish machete grows at the end of the forelimb to hook the prey. It can also be used to defend against hitting the eyes of incoming birds. In order to resist the persecution of the same kind and the teasing of human beings, mantis will arch its predecessor, lift its front legs, spread its wings and make a gesture of scaring each other. Some species of mantis have many spots on their limbs to increase their deterrent effect.

Mantis has always been regarded as an extremely superstitious and awesome creature because of its strange shape and two different speed lifestyles-one is motionless deception and the other is lightning strike. Many villagers call them "demons" and farmers in remote areas of the southern United States call them "mule-horse killers". It is said that some "tobacco juice" will flow out of their mouths, which will cause fatal damage to mules and ponies. In Europe, there is a traditional saying that "mantis has magic". There is a very common belief in some provinces in Italy: if you pray to it, it will show a lost child the way home with its front leg posture.

In the history of orientals, mantis is regarded as a symbol of bravery. The Japanese call it sickle, and its fighting spirit is often related to the names of ancient Japanese swordsmen. In China Wushu, there is a model of visiting mantis. Mantis and China's traditional medicine have already forged an indissoluble bond. As early as BC15th century, people thought that boiling water with egg-free mantis cocoons could cure many diseases-even prevent the infection of sword wounds. In ancient China, mantis cocoon was also used to treat acute abdominal pain, remove warts, relieve the pain of gonorrhea, treat asthma, bladder, gallbladder and other diseases, as well as bedwetting, sciatica, qi and blood weakness, impotence and other diseases. Until today, Chinese medicine practitioners in China still use mantis cocoons and mantis molting.

During the evolution of millions of years, mantis has spread all over areas with suitable climate, especially tropical and subtropical areas, and formed protective colors and shapes suitable for various environments. In tropical forests, green mantis is distributed in various leaf layers. Mantis with brown dry leaves breed under the tree. Mantis also appears in grasslands and treeless plains, shrubs and jungles and desert areas. There are many kinds and shapes of them, such as flowers, branches, ants, lichens, bark and so on. Therefore, it is easy to understand why there are as many as 1800 species-they are composed of several families and hundreds of genera, and the number is more than the population on the earth.

Mantis has patience to wait for rabbits. It always lies in ambush where it can get its prey and grab the road. They also know how to stay in places frequented by insects.

Except a few species of mantis are parthenogenetic, the life cycle of most species of mantis begins with mating. Male mantis will release a special smell to attract mates. When the mother mantis approached it, it approached the mother mantis carefully from behind, and finally it climbed up quickly, probably mating several times in a row.

Generally speaking, male mantis can leave safely after mating, but this often happens. When mating, the female mantis will turn around and eat the head and forelimbs of the male mantis. In order to complete its basic task, it is very effective for the male mantis to use its body as bait. Some scientists believe that the female mantis may eat the head of the male mantis just to avoid being eaten.

Male mantis without head can continue to mate, because the residual nerve tissue in its body can still dominate the function of reproductive organs.

Two days after mating, the female mantis usually stands head down, and begins to discharge a cotton-like foam from the abdomen, which adheres to branches or spawning grounds, and then intermittently lays eggs on each layer of foam and solidifies. The shape, size and color of the cocoon of each genus are obviously different. Usually, an egg cocoon contains more than one hundred eggs. Fertile female mantis can lay eggs ten times in a breeding season. When the climate is cold, cocoon plays an excellent role in keeping out the cold and keeping warm. Mantis living in the desert can effectively resist long-term drought. Usually, these eggs and cocoons are laid on the lower side or edge of the stone.

The mother mantis will protect her eggs and cocoons well. In case of external interference, she will immediately make instinctive resistance and even dare to fight with others. The little mantis hatched from the cocoon is very delicate, and each delicate "baby" wears a coat-a kind of membrane-like pouch, obviously to avoid scratching each other. Soon, due to the pressure of blood in the head, the protective film broke, so these little things were liberated. Those pale-faced, black-eyed mantis can only eat small insects such as aphids at first, but after molting several times in a row, they grow up quickly and can prey on bigger prey.

A few weeks later, after molting for the last time, a mantis really matured. This long-legged insect has been able to pursue pigs, mate, lay eggs and intervene in the eternal life cycle.

Brother, the best answer is "mantis". I think my answer is the most complete, not only telling the answer, but also letting you know. . . The honor of not giving me the best answer is a bit unreasonable. . .