Mantis religiosa or a praying mantis is a big, predatory, green insect. I've seen my first one when I was on vacation on Hvar (Croatia) over two decades ago, and then nothing. I've thought about it as an exotic insect. It turns out, however, that mantises are not entirely foreign to Poland. They were very rare though, hence its strict protection as endangered species. In recent couple years I've started to see them. They showed up in countryside and in garden, I've even seen them couple times in the city where I live. It's great, because those insects are fascinating.
The big ones will often strike a pose to intimidate you so you leave them alone, or downright ignore you, so it is relatively easy to take pictures of them. Recently I've tried to photograph young one though. It jumped, it run very fast, it was hiding under leaves. Most of the photos turned out to be out of focus or with motion blur. Here are some that are ok:
It's hard to judge from above photos how small the creature was, so here is a photo taken by my brother, that clearly shows the scale:
While taking photos, I've spotted a wasp frantically running - yes, running - as if it just barely escaped with its life. As you can see, its left wing is gone and right one is damaged. I'm pretty sure my young mantis was too small to do such damage to a wasp, but my mother said she spotted big one nearby earlier, so it might have been the culprit.
By the way, it turns out that green is not the only color possible for those mantises. Same species, just different coloring:
Alright, so the thing is dangerous to other insects, why the monster in the title though? Well, recently I was staying in a hotel that also had mini-zoo and various figures, from dinosaurs, through giant mushrooms and finally insects. Insects, even though they were big (a grasshopper the size of a horse!), didn't actually look intimidating.
I mean, for example the Colorado beetle looked like it could eat whole bag of potatoes in one sitting, but nothing too scary.
And then there was a mantis.
Imagine you are an adventurer. You are considered a veteran, proud owner of an enchanted greatsword. You and your team are on a quest to subjugate the monster. As you approach it, the creature stands tall, eyeing you, preparing to strike.
You whisper a chant and your sword starts to glow red hot. The monster is fast, but you are faster. You strike right at the center, the tip of your blade cutting through hard cuirass, green goo sipping out and immediately evaporating with sizzling sound as it drips on your flaming sword. The hit stunned and pushed back the insect, but only for a short moment. As you try to lift up your sword, the monster grabs you by the shoulders. The spikes on its raptorial legs are not sharp enough to pierce through your armor, but enough to lock your arms and keep you in place.
No longer able to repeat a swing, you try to jab, but the damage you do is minimal, so you drop the sword and reach for horseman's pick. The blacksmith bragged that with proper swing the weapon could even pierce scale of a dragon. And he might've been right. Even though you can now only hit from your wrist, the pick easily penetrated monster's side armor. However, as it is devoid of pain receptors, it probably didn't even register your attacks. In the meantime the creature grabbed your helmet with its powerful mandibles and proceeded to methodically munch on it. You can hear skull bone cracking and your own screams, your cleric's efforts to heal you just prolonging the agony. As your eyes pop out, your last thought is a regret that you've turned down vibrating saber, that you could now use to sever head of the monster by striking its weak point on the neck, and chosen flaming greatsword instead, mostly because it made you look cool. By the time the mantis dies from damage done by arrows your hunter buddy was constantly sending at it, you are long dead. Does your world know resurrection magic?