1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,560 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff. 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:12,320 Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbaumb here. One of our favorite things about science 3 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,120 Speaker 1: is that it can really surprise us. Consider the case 4 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:20,799 Speaker 1: of the elusive insect, the orchidmantis. Orchid mantises live in 5 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:25,479 Speaker 1: the rainforests of Southeast Asia. The females are big, measuring 6 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:27,640 Speaker 1: about two and a half inches long that's about six 7 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:31,720 Speaker 1: and a half centimeters. Their male counterparts, meanwhile, only grow 8 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:35,560 Speaker 1: to about an inch long maybe three centimeters. If you've 9 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:39,159 Speaker 1: never seen one, they're worth looking up. They look strikingly 10 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:43,240 Speaker 1: like orchid flowers. Their bodies and limbs are colored white 11 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:46,240 Speaker 1: to a delicate pink, often with details of purple on 12 00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:49,800 Speaker 1: their heads, and patterns of brighter pink, yellow, green, or 13 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:53,040 Speaker 1: black on their backs and lower limbs. They are two 14 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: pairs of hind legs used for walking, have wide, flat 15 00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:01,880 Speaker 1: surfaces that look like flower petals. Since they were first 16 00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:04,720 Speaker 1: described in scientific literature and more than one hundred years ago, 17 00:01:05,160 --> 00:01:08,760 Speaker 1: it was thought that these floral mantises evolved to imitate 18 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:12,360 Speaker 1: orchid flowers and thus potential prey that are attracted to 19 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:16,480 Speaker 1: or live among those flowers. By hiding among real blossoms. 20 00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:19,319 Speaker 1: It was thought they could sneak attack anything that happened 21 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:24,800 Speaker 1: by moths, butterflies, beetles, or even frogs and scorpions. This 22 00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:29,080 Speaker 1: type of evolutionary behavior is called cryptic mimicry. It can 23 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,560 Speaker 1: be used on the offense or defense, and it just 24 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,800 Speaker 1: makes sense, right. It was commonly accepted as fact until 25 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:40,600 Speaker 1: a few years ago. Okay, so, in the twenty teens, 26 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,600 Speaker 1: a couple of different research groups were conducting systematic field 27 00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:47,800 Speaker 1: testing to see how adult orchid mantises operate. It turns 28 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:52,400 Speaker 1: out those females weren't hiding at all. Insects were more 29 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:55,840 Speaker 1: attracted to the female orchid manaces than to real flowers. 30 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:58,840 Speaker 1: It was still a deception, but the other insects were 31 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:02,720 Speaker 1: belining towards them, sometimes literally, you know. In the case 32 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:06,440 Speaker 1: of bees. This is known not as cryptic mimicry, but 33 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:11,560 Speaker 1: as aggressive mimicry. By evolving to be larger and more 34 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:15,720 Speaker 1: flower like, female mantises increase their chances of attracting and 35 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:19,480 Speaker 1: catching their preferred prey. They don't even look like one 36 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,440 Speaker 1: particular species of flower. The research shows that their coloration 37 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:29,320 Speaker 1: imitates several different species from an insect's perspective that coloration 38 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,919 Speaker 1: from a distance, the screams tasty nectar found here. As 39 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:37,799 Speaker 1: the insect approaches the orchidmantis, the petal shaped legs confirm 40 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:40,560 Speaker 1: what the insect thinks to be true. It's a flower, 41 00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:44,320 Speaker 1: so it goes in, and the mantis knabs and eats 42 00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:50,400 Speaker 1: the critically misguided insect. These findings might not sound super 43 00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:53,800 Speaker 1: different from the previous hypothesis, but they're interesting for a 44 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,720 Speaker 1: few reasons. First, this is one of the first times 45 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,800 Speaker 1: the female adaptation in a species has been observed to 46 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:05,400 Speaker 1: be for predatory purposes and not reproductive ones. A sexual 47 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:07,639 Speaker 1: dimorphism is when a male and female of the same 48 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:12,600 Speaker 1: species evolve to look and operate a little differently. Usually 49 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:17,160 Speaker 1: the adaptations are both for reproductive purposes, but in the 50 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:20,760 Speaker 1: case of female orchidmantises, they adapted because they were hungry, 51 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:24,200 Speaker 1: not directly to improve their chances of having more or 52 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:29,200 Speaker 1: healthier babies. Their male counterparts meanwhile, evolved to be smaller 53 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,280 Speaker 1: and to use their patterning as camouflage to avoid being 54 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:36,880 Speaker 1: eaten by predators. Of course, both of these behaviors indirectly 55 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:42,920 Speaker 1: improve the mantis's chances of reproducing by surviving longer. The second, 56 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: the orchidmantis is the first animal known to mimic not 57 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:49,200 Speaker 1: just a part of a blossom, but an entire blossom, 58 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:52,880 Speaker 1: including color, petal shape, et cetera, to attract insects of 59 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:58,600 Speaker 1: its own accord. And finally, these types of studies highlight 60 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,840 Speaker 1: how systematic field research can lead to answers you weren't expecting, 61 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: or indeed weren't even attempting to find. One of the 62 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:10,320 Speaker 1: studies that contributed to this knowledge wasn't even looking at 63 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:15,760 Speaker 1: orchidmantises specifically, but at mantis taxonomic classification in general. They 64 00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:19,239 Speaker 1: were hoping to reclassify some different mantis species to better 65 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:23,480 Speaker 1: align with their actual evolutionary history. But when they started 66 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:27,360 Speaker 1: to notice this pattern in orchidmantis evolution, favoring larger, more 67 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:32,880 Speaker 1: colorful females that could catch bigger prey, they honed in. Oh. 68 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:36,000 Speaker 1: Once again, animals prove that we can't always predict why 69 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:38,239 Speaker 1: they do what they do or look how they look. 70 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:43,239 Speaker 1: Mother Nature continues to surprise us in beautiful and deadly ways, 71 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:51,920 Speaker 1: perhaps especially if you're a bug. Today's episode is based 72 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:54,400 Speaker 1: on the article the orchidmantis looks like a flower, it 73 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:57,039 Speaker 1: stings like a Bee on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by 74 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 1: Alison Troutner. A brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio 75 00:04:59,839 --> 00:05:02,320 Speaker 1: in partnership with hostuffworks dot Com and is produced by 76 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:05,040 Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. But four more podcasts from my heart Radio. 77 00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:08,320 Speaker 1: Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 78 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:09,320 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.