. The coxa connects the tibia which has sharp
             spines to firmly hold prey. The femur has matching groves where
             the spine on the tibia fold into. This creates a "jack knife"
             effect that allows the insect to assume it's distinctive praying
             The other four legs of the mantis are designed for
             locomotion. These legs can regenerate if broken, but only in
             the molting process. These limbs that regenerate are always
             smaller than they were originally. A full grown adult that no
             longer molts no longer possess the ability to regenerate limbs.
             The front "raptorial" limbs do not regenerate if broken.
             Because of their large bulky bodies mantids are fairly
             weak flyers. They have four pairs of wings. The first pair are
             leathery tegmina wings that lay over the inner pair. The
             mambrenous inner pair are folded under the first pair and are
             used for flight and to startle enemies.
             The large segmented abdomen houses the digestive system
             and reproductive organs. The male mantis has 8 segments, and
             the females are born with 8 segments as well. But with each
             succesive molt in the female the last two segments begin to
             overlap resulting with 6 segments left.
             Sixty percent of mantid species possess an ultrasonic ear
             on the under side of the metathorax, especially those that have
             wings. The mantid is an "auditory cyclops", which means it only
             has one ear. The ear is 1mm long with cuticle like knobs at
             either end and two ear drums buried inside. The ear is
             specially tuned to very high ultrasonic freqeuncies of sound
             waves from 25 to 65 kilohertz. Apparently, the ears primary
             purpose is designed to respond to the ultrasonic echo-location
             The mantis primarily uses its ultrasonic ears while in
             flight. When a mantis senses a bat's ultrasonic echo at close
             range, it curls it's abdomen upwards and thrusts its legs
             outward creating a drag and resul...