The insect is apparently praying.

But let a victim come within reach, and the attitude of prayer is promptly abandoned.

Suddenly unfolded, the three long joints of the deadly fore-limbs shoot out their terminal talons, which strike the victim and drag it backwards between the two saw-blades of the thighs.

The vice closes with a movement like that of the forearm upon the upper arm, and all is over; crickets, grasshoppers, and even more powerful insects, once seized in this trap with its four rows of teeth, are lost irreparably.

Their frantic struggles will never release the hold of this terrible engine of destruction.
The habits of the Mantis cannot be continuously studied in the freedom of the fields; the insect must be domesticated.