User:TV2424/Flower mantis

Article Draft
*** 1st paragraph: I re-wrote most of the sections and added some credible references to the previous owners statements

Lead
Flower mantises are praying mantis species that display behaviors of mimicry. These insects have specific colorations and behaviors that mimic flowers in their surrounding habitats. The flower mantises are non-nocturnal group with a single ancestry (a clade), but the majority of the known species belong to family Hymenopodidea. These animals use a special form of camouflage referred to as Aggressive mimicry, which is used not only to avoid predation but to attract prey as well. This strategy has been observed in other mantises including the stick mantis and dead-leaf mantis. The observed behavior of these mantises includes positioning themselves on a plant and either inserting themselves within the irradiance or on the foliage of the plants until a prey species comes within range.

Example species
The orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus of southeast Asia mimics orchid flowers. There is no evidence that suggests that they mimic a specific orchid, but their bodies are often white with pink markings and green eyes. These insects display different body morphologies depending on their life stage; juveniles are able to bend their abdomens upwards, allowing them to easily resemble a flower. However, however the adult’s wings are too large inhibiting their ability to bend as the juveniles do. This dichotomy suggests that there must be other processes involved to attract insect prey species. Since Hymenopus coronatus don't often mimic one orchid in particular, their colorations don’t often coincide with the colorations of a single orchid species.

Antipredator behaviour
One mechanism displayed by the orchid mantis to attract prey is the ability to absorb UV light the same way that flowers are able to. This makes the mantis appear flower-like to UV sensitive insects who are often pollinators. To an insect, the mantis and the surrounding flowers appear blue; this contrasts against the foliage in the background that appears red.

*** keep original authors section in paragraph 2 starting from "in his 1940 book....to catch them". Follow this paragraph with:

Juvenile mantises are also capable of secreting chemicals that contain 3HOA and 10HDA, both of which were found to be used to aggregate the top prey species for juvenile orchid mantises: the oriental bumblebee. This method of deception is referred to as aggressive chemical mimicry; the animals mimics the chemical composition of the pheromones' of Apis cerana japonica (Oriental Bumblebee), which is also involved in their communication strategies. The chemicals are stored in the mandibles until H. coronatus is hunting, upon which the chemicals are released into the environment and attract the oriental bumblebees. Adult H. coronatus do not produce these chemicals and as a result they have been shown to attract fewer prey species because they rely on the ability to absorb the UV rays and flower-like appearance to hunt and camouflage

Despite being predominantly immobile, It was hypothesized that these mantises are able to survive, persist, and attract sufficient prey species in their environment because they are found in lower quantities in the environment compared to the amount of flowers present. As a result, it was assumed that there was a reduced learning potential such that the pollinators experience reduced exposure to the deceptive predators than they do to the flower meaning that if they have previously been rewarded by a flower with similar features as the model they won't successfully distinguish the difference between them because they haven't been exposed to this behavior enough to display a response. In addition, this also decreases the likelihood that the pollinators will be able to distinguish between the model organism and the orchid they wish to pollinate because they have less experience interacting with the mantis and experiencing their behavior.