Bird-Eating Bug

When hummingbirds stop to sip nectar from a bird feeder, they’re expecting a sweet treat—not to become one themselves! But that’s exactly what happened to this unlucky bird when a praying mantis caught it for a meal. Tom Vaughan, a retired National Park Service ranger, captured the gruesome moment on his back porch in Colorado.

“At first I thought it was a hummingbird hanging upside down, which I had seen before,” says Vaughan. “Then I saw the mantis hanging on to it, munching away on its scalp.” Once it was done eating, the mantis repositioned itself on the rim of the feeder. It seemed like the insect was lying in wait for its next unsuspecting victim, says Vaughan.

That makes sense because most mantises are ambush predators. They sit and wait for prey to get close, and then they strike. The insects fling out their large, powerful front legs. Spikes on the legs help them grip their victims.

“Mantises prey on anything that moves,” says Lou Sorkin, an entomologist who studies insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They mostly eat insects and other small animals, like spiders and mice. But a recent study found some reported cases where birds—mostly small hummingbirds drinking at bird feeders—were on the menu too.

“Others have been recording this phenomenon for some time,” says Vaughan. “But for me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime picture!”