When we think of species of sublime beauty, insects don’t usually appear immediately in our minds, but what if I told you that in fact the most beautiful beings are insects. There are those that give a kind of calm to the eye, there are also peculiar ones, but within the classification of beautiful insects the one that perhaps stands out the most is the orchid mantis. This combines the peculiarities of two magical worlds, fauna and flora.
The orchid mantis
Nature’s code is very clear, it is designed to survive, although the ways in which they do so are truly surprising. The evolution of each being is unique and it is ineffable to think that it was possible for it to branch out into millions of beautiful forms. Just think about the large number of people we cohabit the planet with, and a microscopic world of insects that is out of our sight.
One of millions of branches of evolution resulted in the species known as orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus), which has one of the most beautiful and lethal mimicries in nature. Among characteristics of the flora and fauna, the orchid mantis is deceptive at first glance, but if you look closer, suddenly the shapes begin to make sense.
What appears to be a flower with colorful pink hues, combined with sporadic orange patterns and green roots, is actually an insect with movements that inspired oriental martial arts. Its middle and hind legs are pink and heart-shaped, resembling the delicate petals of orchids.
Sublime but lethal appearance
The orchid mantis has amazed naturalists for centuries, although to this day it remains so strange that little is known about its behavior. He Travel writer James Hingston was one of the first to describe the orchid mantis in 1897.
It was first described in 1897 by James Hingston in his “Wanderings in the East,” who initially thought it was an extremely rare carnivorous orchid:
“My kind host takes me through his garden and shows me, among other things, a flower, an orchid, that catches and feeds on live flies. He seized a butterfly while I was present and enclosed it in the beautiful but deadly leaves of it, as one would have wrapped it in a net.
But it was later learned that what Hingston had seen was not a carnivorous plant, but a mantis with an intricate mimetic systeman evolutionary process that provides it with the necessary conditions to survive, or that was what entomologists believed.
Initially, it was thought that the orchid mantis was a classic example of cryptic mimicry where the animal develops similarities with its environment to survive hunting predators. But as the investigations progressed, they realized that in fact it does not imitate any flower close to its environment, how to hide then? And this is where nature always gives us an unexpected plot twist, The orchid mantis does not use its beauty to blend in, but to attract its victims.
It is not a cryptic mimicry but an aggressive one, Entomologists say, with which orchid mantises attract their victims, insects and pollinators that land on a false flower that turns out to be a predator. This is how lethality and beauty come together in nature to maintain the perfect balance. Continue scrolling to delight in the beauty of the orchid mantis.
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