This huge praying mantis managed to lift a dead goldfish out of it's bowl - and eat it for lunch. The extraordinary process was captured on camera by wildlife photographer Scott Cromwell. Scott, 40, said: "I noticed one of my goldfish had suddenly died and was floating in the bowl.
My pet mantis hadn't eaten in a couple of days, and I was interested to see how it would react to the fish. I put the mantis on the lip of the bowl and waited.
Mmm that looks tasty: The praying mantis looks down into the fish bowl and spies the goldfish
The mantis then climbed over the lip of the bowl and grabbed hold of the dead fish
This is a budwing mantis and they are one of the few mantises that will eat dead prey.Scott, from Oklahoma, United States, said the mantis crawled inside the glass so it was partially submerged.
Since I had a hungry one, I figured he might save me the job of removing the fish - and get me an interesting set of pictures too.
He explained:
It was watching the live fish most of the time, and they were really wary - none of them would go near it. But it didn't take long for the mantis to grab hold of the dead goldfish, carefully hauling it out while maintaining its grip on the rim of the bowl.Scott allowed his mantis to tuck into the fish but decided to remove the carcass before the ravenous insect had gorged itself on the huge meal.
He added:
I was afraid it would start eating the bones and I wasn't sure if they would hurt it, so I managed to retrieve the remains from it's grasp.
This'll do me: Much to the horror of the other goldfish the mantis wanders off with its catch
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