Defensive behaviour in Ghanaian praying mantids

Edmunds, Malcolm

doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1972.tb00771.x

Cited by 93 publications

(106 citation statements)

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“…They are rather prominent in species that carry the head in a more or less prognathous position, as, for instance, Amorphoscelinae, Paraoxypilinae (Fig. 78) The function of the lateral tubercles has been discussed by Edmunds (1972Edmunds ( , 1976. In dorsal view, they enhance the concealment of the neck contour thus making it more difficult for predators to recognize the mantid as such (and therefore as potential prey) by its characteristic head-prothorax outline (Edmunds 1972: 20, 1976: 5 and fig.…”

Section: Charactersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their body is flattened and often well camouflaged against the moss-and lichen-speckled bark (e.g. Hingston 1932: 275;Rehn 1935: 201;Edmunds 1972Edmunds : 20, 1976Figs. 20, 21), sometimes even resembling the structure of the bark itself, as mentioned for the South-East Asian Theopompa Stål, 1877 by Chopard (1938: 417) and Edmunds (1972: 20).…”

Section: 9 7mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Edmunds (1972) hypothesized that the elongated vertical process in combination with the "hypognathous" head position and the close fitting of the forelegs against the head breaks up the outline of the praying posture of several spe- (Strenger 1942: 56;Beier 1964aBeier : 865, 1968aRoy 1999: 24) but is located anterior to the area from which the aforementioned vertical processes usually arise. They are present, for instance, in some Vatinae [Zoolea (Fig.…”

Section: Charactersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The phylogenetic system of Mantodea (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

Frank¹

2013

Species, Phylogeny and Evolution - SPE

212

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The first reconstruction of mantodean phylogeny using a large morphological dataset of the entire group is presented. 152 morphological characters were encoded for 122 species of Mantodea, encompassing all 15 currently recognized families, 34 of 48 subfamilies (71 %) and 33 of 46 tribus (72 %). Structures from the entire exoskeleton were studied, including characters that have been stated to be convergent developments before without data-based evidence. Fossils, behaviour and ontogenetic observations were used for the interpretation of structures and the discussion of evolutionary scenarios.Calculations resulted in 888 equally parsimonious trees (analysis I). Many characters were found to be highly homoplastic, resulting in consensus cladograms with low resolution except for many smaller distal clades. Characters were automatically reweighted (based on the Rescaled Consistency Index).Subsequent calculation (analysis II) resulted in 10 equally parsimonious trees, and the consensus cladogram was almost fully resolved. Most of the small monophyletic groups found in analysis I were recovered in analysis II.The resulting phylogenetic reconstruction supported the monophyly of five traditional families (Acanthopidae, Empusidae, Eremiaphilidae, Thespidae, and Toxoderidae; 33 %), of 11 subfamilies (Amorphoscelinae, Angelinae, Chroicopterinae, Empusinae, Haaniinae, Hymenopodinae, Oxypilinae, Paraoxypilinae, Perlamantinae, Toxoderinae, and Tropidomantinae; 32 % of the subfamilies studied) and of six tribus (Angelini, Chroicopterini, Idolomorphini, Oxypilini, Polyspilotini, and Rivetinini; 18 % of the tribus studied). The subgroups of Amorphoscelidae in the traditional sense clustered together in analysis II (not in analysis I), however the group encompassed Compsothespis (which is usually assumed to belong to Mantidae) as the sistergroup of Amorphoscelinae + Perlamantinae within Amorphoscelidae. The potential likeliness of this scenario was discussed in detail.Many structures have been shown to have evolved many times independently in Mantodea, most likely due to comparable selective pressures in the respective habitats. Among them are the head processes, lamellar expansions of the pronota, and lobes on the legs and on the abdomen. Furthermore, the metathoracic hearing organ ("cyclopean ear") evolved several times independently and possibly separately in males and females in some cases. Molecular studies have instead found evidence for a monophyletic neotropical earless taxon in the basal part of the phylogenetic tree. Thespidae was found to be monophyletic and to include Oligonicinae as well as Haaniinae, nested among the latter. The monophyly of Oligonicinae including Haaniinae is supported by their unique fore tibial morphology. This phylogenetic relationship implicates that the ear in Haaniinae originated independently form other taxa, as the group is nested among the earless Oligonicinae.Congruence between the morphological reconstruction of the phylogeny and the traditional classification was higher than that...

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Section: Charactersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: 9 7mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Charactersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The phylogenetic system of Mantodea (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

Frank¹

2013

Species, Phylogeny and Evolution - SPE

212

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“…Thanatosis has been studied for over a century and appears in a variety of vertebrates and invertebrates. These animals include 8 amphibians (e.g., Gargaglioni et al 2001, Bertoluci et al 2007, birds (e.g., Sargeant & Eberhardt 1975;Rovee et al 1976), fish (e.g., Howe, 1991;Gibran, 2004), mammals (e.g., Francq, 1969;Kimble, 1997), reptiles (e.g., Greene, 1988;Santos et al, 2010;Burghardt & Greene, 1988;Harding, 1997), spiders (e.g., Cloudsley-Thompson, 1995), and a staggering array of insects: beetles (Chemsak & Linsley, 1970;Prohammer and Wade, 1981;Allen, 1990;Oliver, 1996;Acheampong & Mitchell, 1997;Miyatake, 2001a,b;Miyatake et al, 2004), cicada (Villet, 1999), crickets (Nishino & Sakai, 1996), lepidopterans (Tojo et al, 1985;Dudley, 1989;Larsen, 1991), mantids (Edmunds, 1972),…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Dinges¹,

Varnon²,

Cota³

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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The current study provides evidence of learned helplessness in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Bees received either avoidable or unavoidable shock during a discriminative compartment restriction task in an automated shuttle box. Decreased avoidance behavior was observed when bees received unavoidable shock prior to avoidable shock tests, conserving a non-preference response pattern. Prior training with avoidable shock created a preference that was conserved when shock was later unavoidable. Length of the training time impacted how pronounced the conserved behavior was in subsequent tests. Unlike existing learned helplessness studies in other animals, no decrease in general activity was observed. These findings identify honey bees as a unique model organism to explore the process of learned helplessness.v

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“…mammals, Francq 1969;birds, Rovee et al 1976;reptiles, Greene 1988;insects, Holmes 1906, Edmunds 1972, and is a type of hypnotic reaction or immobility elicited by the presence of predators (Ratner 1967). Although there are many similar types of reaction, death feigning is distinguishable in that it constitutes a secondary defence elicited only after encountering a predator (Edmunds 1974;Ruxton et al 2004) and is associated with a characteristic fixed posture (Ratner 1967;Chemsak & Linsley 1970;Miyatake 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive significance of death feigning posture as a specialized inducible defence against gape-limited predators

2006

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Death feigning is fairly common in a number of taxa, but the adaptive significance of this behaviour is still unclear and has seldom been tested. To date, all proposed hypotheses have assumed that prey manage to escape predation by sending a death-mimicking signal, although death-feigning postures are markedly different from those of dead animals. Moreover, the efficacy of this technique may largely depend on the foraging mode of the predator; death feigning seldom works with sit-and-wait predators that make the decision to attack and consume prey within a very brief time. We examined whether death feigning in the pygmy grasshopper Criotettix japonicus Haan was an inducible defence behaviour against the frog Rana nigromaculata, a sit-and-wait, gape-limited predator. The characteristic posture assumed by the grasshopper during death feigning enlarges its functional body size by stretching each of three body parts (pronotum, hind legs and lateral spines) in three different directions, thereby making it difficult for the predator to swallow the prey. Our result is the first consistent explanation for why death-mimicking animals do not always mimic the posture of dead animals.

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Defensive behaviour in Ghanaian praying mantids

Cited by 93 publications

References 7 publications

The phylogenetic system of Mantodea (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

The phylogenetic system of Mantodea (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Adaptive significance of death feigning posture as a specialized inducible defence against gape-limited predators

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