If it’s eating salad, it’s a walking stick. If it’s eating a humming bird, it’s a mantis. Shoulda been called a PREYING mantis!
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Today’s sketch from the Random Object Randomogrifier was this life-sized model praying mantis from Safari Ltd. It gave us a front-row seat to its deadly charm, with its classic “prayer pose” and curved, scimitar-like forearms, the mantis practically sketches itself. It’s just a stick, two blades, and spindly legs. I focused on getting those bladed front “arms” right in ink and wash, working out where shadows belonged on this spindly bug without letting the pose go stiff.
While drawing, we talked about the mantis’s unique biology: 2,400 known species, 180° head rotation, stereo vision, and their cockroach ancestry. They don’t nibble leaves like walking sticks, they snatch flies, lizards, and even hummingbirds out of the air. One North American species, Brunneria borealis, has no males at all. Scientists have raised them in captivity and found zero Y chromosomes, no mating needed, just eggs and clones. That’s call Parthenogenesis. That’s a big word for Elmo. The rest are notorious for the females eating the heads of the males during copulation… Cue the comic I once drew: a teen girl mantis teases her younger brother, who has a bite out of his head, about having a girlfriend. He screams his denial, but the missing bite clues mom otherwise. Mom sends him to talk to Dad… who’s already headless and walking in circles and bumping into walls.
We also dipped into old-school monster movies like The Deadly Mantis (1957), which features a frozen prehistoric mantis terrorizing the military. No sequel ever came despite the perfect setup for radioactive parthenogenetic eggs to hatch 67 years later. Hollywood, if you’re listening: we’ve got ideas. And if you ever see a mantis Kung Fu fighting? Just step back. It’s probably deadly accurate.