We all stared at this headless mantis in surprise, without a head and motionless.
But there is no doubt that it is alive. It is now staying quietly on the back of a broad blade of grass, its hind limbs clinging to the leaf surface, hanging upside down, and a pair of extremely lethal forelimbs curled up.
If you look closely, you can see that his head is completely disconnected from the neck, and the fracture is full of uneven gaps, which are the marks left by chewing mouthparts. There were signs of healing at the fracture, but blood, tissue fluid, minced meat and broken carapace still remained.
In addition, some minor wounds can be seen on its soft belly, such as stab wounds and open wounds.
According to the identification of the compatriots who escaped yesterday, this is the bark mantis that attacked them yesterday.
It seems that something very bad happened to this mantis yesterday. But even after suffering such severe trauma, this bark mantis still escaped and was still alive. Its belly was still bulging, showing its vitality.
Although without its head, this mantis will die of hunger and thirst sooner or later, but now, it still poses a considerable threat.
Fortunately, after losing its antennae and eyes, this mantis's perception ability was greatly reduced. Even if a large group of us warriors were watching not far away, it would not react at all.
Broken Leg and several senior soldiers came to me to discuss the next move.
We have never encountered such a strange situation. We thought there would be a fierce battle, but what we encountered was an unexpected situation.
After a brief discussion, we decided to attack this headless bark mantis. Killing or driving it away was our original goal. Now that it has lost more than half of its threat, it is a good opportunity.
So, after some exchanges, the more than twenty warriors who had gathered here began to encircle the mantis on the back of the grass blades.
Several warriors carefully climbed up the grass stems. Even though the target had lost its head, the threat of the huge sickle-foot still existed, so we still had to be cautious.
They prepare to pounce on the headless bark mantis. More warriors stayed on the ground, because the grass was too small to accommodate too many warriors, and the mantis was likely to fall to the ground after being attacked. In that case, it would just fall into the circle of warriors waiting here.
However, after losing its head, vision and antennae, this bark mantis seems to have become more sensitive.
I was on the ground and noticed that when the first soldier climbed up the grass, the grass shook slightly and slightly. However, the body of this mantis trembled, trembling with fear.
By the time several more soldiers climbed up the grass stems and were still far away from the target, the headless bark mantis had noticed something unusual, suddenly opened its wings, released its hind limbs, and then fluttered away into the distance.
Without its head, it flew crookedly, but it could be seen that it was trying its best to escape. I seem to feel its fear, deep fear.
What could make an apex predator so scared?
Without having time to think about it, the other warriors and I quickly chased in the direction in which the headless bark mantis was escaping. If it did not fly far, we would have to continue attacking it. If it escapes too far, we have to see it leave tribal territory to feel at ease.
The headless bark mantis flies very slowly, crookedly, and stumbles. Without its head, its various athletic abilities are affected.
The direction it was flying happened to be a gravel land with sparse vegetation, with only some scattered vegetation. We quickly caught up here. The view here is wide and the headless bark mantis flies very slowly. It was easy for us to follow the target closely.
It has no sign of landing. It seems that it just lost its head yesterday and it still has enough strength and energy in its body to support its long-distance flight.
In this case, we are not in a hurry to catch up with it, but just keep it in sight.
But at this moment, a sudden change occurred.
Not far ahead, at the top of a plant, a huge black shadow suddenly appeared, rising from bottom to top, bouncing up into the sky at an extremely fast speed, and collided with the flying headless bark mantis.
When we just reacted, we saw an extremely terrifying behemoth landing not far in front of us.
It has the same appearance as the headless mantis we just chased, but it has a complete triangular head and its ferocious mouthparts are wide open. Moreover, its size is fully twice the size of the headless mantis that escaped just now.
It was a female bark mantis and I noticed she had a swollen belly.
She is in the period after mating and before giving birth, the period when she is most hungry and dangerous.
She ignored the existence of our group of warriors, and a pair of predatory legs covered with sharp serrations firmly grasped the torso of the headless mantis that had just been caught from the air. Regardless of the six limbs of the headless mantis still struggling instinctively, she pulled the headless mantis away. The head mantis aimed its fat belly at his huge mouth and bit it in one bite.
A huge wound immediately appeared on the tan belly of the headless mantis, and internal organs fragments mixed with various body fluids and excrement flowed out, covering the body of the female bark mantis.
But she didn't care, chewing one bite after another. The sizeable abdomen of the originally huge headless mantis quickly disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye. Soon, the entire abdomen was completely gone.
When the abdomen was also eaten, the headless mantis completely lost its vitality. The female mantis was still gnawing on its chest and limbs crazily. Except for the pair of non-nutritious wings, it seemed that she did not intend to let go of any food and nutrition. .
Such a bloody and cruel scene happened in front of us. At this moment, I finally understood what the headless bark mantis had encountered before, what it was afraid of, and what it wanted to avoid. But no matter how hard it struggled, even if it escaped once, it was finally captured again and completely became prey.
Our species is also a great hunter, good at catching prey and eating it.
However, it is natural for us to eat our prey, but the shock of seeing a giant beast that is so huge that we feel powerless to resist eating another giant beast in front of us is completely different.
The female mantis quickly finished her "hearty" meal, which was enough meat for our entire tribe to eat for two meals, but she still seemed unsatisfied. Her bloated belly, and the fertilized eggs in her belly that might have genes left behind by a headless mantis she had just eaten, drove her to look for more food.
Then, her naked, malicious and hungry eyes locked onto us!
