- Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Guys, guys, guys, praying mantis!
Now one thing that I love about these insects
is look at that face,
looks just like an alien from another planet.
(light jungle music)
Pretty cool exploring the countryside here in Japan,
just scouting some location, ooh, ooh, ooh, look at that!
Oh no, it's a dead praying mantis,
oh, buddy.
Ah, I hate to see when they're dead.
That stinks, there's a garden right over here.
- Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Guys, guys, guys, praying mantis!
Yes!
I just saw a dead one, this one is,
this one's alive. - Cool!
You wanna film a scene?
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Definitely worth filming a little segment with this guy.
Look at that.
- Let's head right over here. - Okay.
- There we go, alright. - Sweet!
- Awesome. - Wow!
Good timing, rain is moving in.
- Yeah, I think we only have a few minutes to do this,
but, yeah. - Definitely worth getting
a little segment. - You know your mantis facts,
right? - Oh yeah,
well guys, we're just walking down the road right now
scouting locations and right in the middle of the road
is this beautiful, green praying mantis.
Now, we've featured praying mantis on the channel
a couple of times, but never species here in Japan.
Now there's several different species, that live in Japan,
so we'll have to look this up to identify it properly,
but we just can never pass up the opportunity
to get one of these insects up close for the cameras
and this one is being incredibly calm,
most of the time, they're trying to pinch me
with those front arms or trying to fly away,
so we figured why not get a quick little scene
with this insect?
Now, as you guys know, all insects break down
into three parts, the head, the thorax and the abdomen,
what's really cool about praying mantis
is look how long that thorax is just behind the head
and then of course you've got this large abdomen,
which indicates that it is likely a female,
now the females do grow larger than the males
and as you may know and if you don't know,
now you're about to know,
when the males and the females breed,
afterwards the females bite the heads off of the males
and eat the bodies,
so it's sort of a cannibalistic sort of situation,
but still pretty cool,
I mean, these insects have a very unique life process
and after they lay their eggs, they end up dying,
so we are just at the beginning of egg-laying season,
so this praying mantis doesn't have too much time left,
but certainly something still really cool
to get up close for the cameras.
Now one thing that I love about these insects
is look at that face,
looks just like an alien from another planet,
those big, buggy eyes,
now they do have incredible eyesight
and as we know, praying mantis are ambush hunters,
because of their color, they can stay camouflaged
in all the plants where they live
and then they wait for something to come close,
lash out with those front arms, grab onto it,
crush it with those sharp little spikes
and then of course eat their prey, what a cool creature.
Now let me turn it like this,
you can see on the back covering the abdomen there,
these are the wings and praying mantis are capable
of flying, usually only for a short distance,
they tend to want to move from spot to spot,
more so just by crawling amongst all of the foliage,
but if some predatory threat comes into the environment,
they of course can then take off and quickly escape.
You maybe ask yourself, well, what would eat a bug,
that's as cool as a praying mantis?
Certainly birds, different reptiles
and even mammals will take this species.
Wow, isn't he sweet?
The one thing that I love about the praying mantis
is how inquisitive and intelligent this insect seems,
look at those big eyes, always curious,
always paying attention to its surroundings
and what you may not know is the praying mantis
are both diurnal and nocturnal,
meaning that you'll see them active during the day,
but also at night.
Now the praying mantis is an opportunistic feeder,
meaning it will pretty much take anything
that it can grab on to, even things bigger than itself,
things such as small frogs, even lizards and small snakes
are capable of being eaten by this insect.
Wow, I absolutely love praying mantis
and people oftentimes ask me what my favorite animal is
and as you guys know, it is the common snapping turtle,
but when it comes to insects,
the praying mantis has always been the one,
that I've been fascinated with
ever since I was a little kid.
Well, this is pretty cool, walking down the street,
scouting locations and we happen upon
the one and only praying mantis.
I'm Coyote Peterson,
be brave, stay wild,
we'll see you on the next adventure.
Alright, there's actually a garden right over here,
she was headed in that direction,
so let's place her in there
and hopefully she'll find some cool food to eat.
Alright, back into this garden you go.
(light melodic music)
- [Announcer] Hey Coyote Pack,
have you enjoyed watching Coyote's climb
up the Insect Sting Pain Index?
Learn more about these thrilling and painful adventures
in Coyote's new book, The King of Sting.
It swarms into book stores November 27th,
but you can pre-order your copy today,
just look for the link in the description below.
- [Coyote] Hey, Coyote Pack,
if you thought this praying mantis was cool,
make sure to go back and watch the episode,
where one of these predatory insects karate chop my nose.
Ouch!
And don't forget, subscribe and click the Notification bell,
so you can join me and the crew on our next wild adventure.
(light jungle music)