PBL/Insects.

This is my PBL insect it is a Praying Mantis. I  named it Bugsey because he has really derpy eyes. Bugsey is made out of: plastic, green paint, newspaper and hot glue.  The learning muscles i had to use are empathy to listen to what I have to do, my favorite part was painting her and getting  my hands dirty. The bit that was hard was getting the body shape right. 

Introduction

A Praying mantis is a small insect. Praying mantises are very good hunters,  They have sharp pointed claws pushed in front of it so it looks it is praying. They come in 4 different subspecies the Asian mantis, New zealand's mantis, Unicorn mantis and the Orchid mantis. They can grow to five to eight centimetres.They have three body parts 1.head 2.the abdomen 3.thorax, and they can be pink, white, green, brown.        

Diet

The praying mantis eats other insects, for example flies, mosquitos and also can eat birds and pinky mice. Females have to hunt for their young nymphs, they eat cut up pieces of mosquitoes.  { method of hunt } the mantis stays motionless on a stem or leaf, well camouflaged as it waits for its prey. It grabs the prey with its strong front legs and bites the head off and eats it.

helpful	Not helpful
Eats insects that can harm vegetation	When the female mates with the male the male the female eats it. Since the african mantis is in nz it is eating the nz mantis so the numbers are running low

Life cycle

After mating with a male, a female mantis lays a group of 50-100 eggs in a egg case which is made out of a frothy paste that comes from female praying mantis.Unlike some other insects praying mantises have just three stages:egg, nymph, adult. Nymphs are basically adults but have no wings. A young praying mantis is called a nymph. Each egg case has about 100-200 mantises in it. In order to hatch they'll need several weeks of warm weather,so they can sense that summer has arrived. They will develop into adults by shedding.  Shedding is when as they grow from a nymph their skin falls off them.

Defence

Praying mantis is actually pretty strong, when a praying mantis is threatened it will stand up tall, spreads its spiked forelegs, fans out its wings as wide as possible, and opens its mouth. It is quite frightening for a human so imagine for a other insect. Mantises depend on their camouflage for survival. They can change colour to blend in with their environment. There are many Predators including birds that they have to look out for.Most kinds of mantis have a space inside their that helps them hear high-pitched sounds that bats make.