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Orchid Mantis
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Jul 1, 2025
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View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey, want to see something really cool?
0:02
Flower that looks like a preying mantis.
0:05
Yeah, this is real. And there's actually
0:07
a very good reason for why it does this.
0:10
Preying mantises are known as some of
0:12
the most fierce predators in the insect
0:14
world. They sit and wait for their prey
0:16
to get close before they strike with
0:18
their giant forlims. But this orchid
0:21
mantis is a little different. Instead of
0:23
waiting for its food to get close, it
0:25
gets the food to come to it. See, when
0:27
an insect like a bee flies past and sees
0:29
this orchid flower, it thinks, "Wow,
0:31
what a beautiful flower I have to
0:33
pollinate." So, the bee lands on the
0:35
flower to drink some nectar and collect
0:37
pollen. And if you're a bee, please
0:39
don't eat my plants. When I was making
0:42
this video, I thought it would be fun to
0:43
include some real footage of an orchid
0:45
mantis catching its prey. But when I
0:47
searched online, I couldn't find any.
0:49
found lots of videos of people taking
0:51
pictures of orchid mantises in the wild,
0:53
but never any video of them actually
0:55
catching anything. So, I decided to make
0:57
my own video with some toy insects and a
0:59
model of an orchid mantis. Check it out
1:02
right here. It's found in the tropical
1:03
forests of Southeast Asia and Australia.
1:07
But even in these areas, it's still very
1:09
hard to find. See you next time. Malcolm
1:12
Walker here. Till next time. Because of
1:14
this, very little is known about the
1:16
orchid mantis. You don't even know how
1:17
long they live or how many there are in
1:19
the wild. But then the orchid mantis
1:22
strikes with its huge forlims and grabs
1:24
the bee before it even knows what
1:25
happened. This is a rare gift. You may
1:28
have seen a praying mantis before, but
1:30
if you didn't look closely at what it
1:31
was holding in its hands, you might have
1:33
been tricked into thinking it was a
1:34
flower. That s because the orchid mantis
1:38
has evolved over time to look exactly
1:40
like one of these orchid flowers. The
1:42
biggest difference between the orchid
1:44
mantis and other preying mantises is its
1:47
color. While most praying mantises are
1:49
green, the orchid mantis can be many
1:51
different colors depending on the orchid
1:53
it's mimicking. This allows it to blend
1:55
in perfectly with its surroundings. But
1:58
the reason it does this isn't just so
2:00
that it can hide from predators. It also
2:02
attracts its prey. Now, you're probably
2:05
thinking, "Wow, that's a really weird
2:07
way to get food. Why would an orchid
2:10
mantis even evolve to do this? Well, it
2:12
turns out that bees and other
2:14
pollinators are much more likely to go
2:16
to a brightly colored flower than a
2:18
green one. So, by evolving to look like
2:20
this orchid, the orchid mantis gets a
2:22
lot more bees and other pollinators to
2:25
come close enough to eat them. The
2:27
orchid mantis is a rare species of
2:28
preying mantis that lives in only a few
2:30
places in the world. What do you think?
2:33
Would you want to be a bee that gets
2:34
tricked by an orchid mantis? Let me know
2:37
in the comments below. No. Thanks for
2:39
watching.
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