I can only admire the privileges of a stomach in which matter is digested immediately upon entrance, dissolved and made away with.
The usual diet of the Mantis under my wire cages consists of crickets of different species and varying greatly in size.

It is interesting to watch the Mantis nibbling at its cricket, which it holds in the vice formed by its murderous fore-limbs.

In spite of the fine-pointed muzzle, which hardly seems made for such ferocity, the entire insect disappears excepting the wings, of which only the base, which is slightly fleshy, is consumed.

Legs, claws, horny integuments, all else is eaten.
Sometimes the great hinder thigh is seized by the knuckle, carried to the mouth, tasted, and crunched with a little air of satisfaction.

The swollen thigh of the cricket might well be a choice "cut" for the Mantis, as a leg of lamb is for us! The attack on the victim begins at the back of the neck or base of the head.