{"id":1032,"date":"2022-08-12T12:26:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T18:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?p=1032"},"modified":"2022-08-12T12:28:04","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T18:28:04","slug":"an-orchid-preying-mantis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?p=1032","title":{"rendered":"An orchid praying mantis"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 353px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/70053\/original\/image-20150126-24535-klqk4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=926&amp;fit=clip\" width=\"343\" height=\"232\" data-id=\"70053\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus. Igor Siwanowicz. Source: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/secrets-of-the-orchid-mantis-revealed-it-doesnt-mimic-an-orchid-after-all-36715<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When I first saw the image, I thought &#8211; this has to be photoshop at its finest. But no, there really is a praying mantis that is commonly known as the orchid mantis, <em>Hymenopus coronatus<\/em>. The image here, by Igor Siwanowicz, was shamelessly copied from an <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/secrets-of-the-orchid-mantis-revealed-it-doesnt-mimic-an-orchid-after-all-36715\">article<\/a> in <em>The Conversation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The article was published in January 2015 with a title of &#8220;Secrets of the orchid mantis revealed &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t mimic an orchid after all.&#8221; The mantis in this image doesn&#8217;t look exactly like the orchid although some other images I&#8217;ve found surfing the web certainly do. The article discusses some then new research that suggests that mimicry that&#8217;s close enough is good enough: these mantises apparently mimic a &#8220;generalized&#8221; flower.<\/p>\n<p>While flowers, and orchids are prime examples, are known to mimic insects, according to the article, the orchid mantis is the first known insect to mimic a flower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first saw the image, I thought &#8211; this has to be photoshop at its finest. But no, there really is a praying mantis that is commonly known as the orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus. The image here, by Igor &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?p=1032\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}