Attack on Titan: a record of predation on the Chinese reddish mantis Hierodula chinensis (Mantodea, Mantidae) by the orb-web weaving spider Gibbaranea abscissa (Araneae, Araneidae)

By

Yamasaki, Kazuhisa
Baba, Yuki G.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-3-24

Original Publication

Journal of orthoptera research : JOR

Volume

34

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

131--134

Subjects

Alien species , intraguild predation , low-temperature tolerance , prey–predator interaction

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Philadelphia, Penn Orthopterists' Society 1992-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.34.122095

 

Abstract

Prey–predator interaction is a phenomenon important to our understanding of community dynamics. Mantises and web-weaving spiders are predators that belong to the same guild, and they can be each other’s predator and prey. However, their relationship is generally asymmetrical, with spiders often being the prey of the mantises. Here, we report a rare opposite case in which an adult female mantis, Hierodula chinensis Werner, 1929, was preyed upon by the orb-web weaving spider Gibbaranea abscissa (Karsch, 1879), without using a web, in a late autumn field in Japan. We suggest that differences in cold tolerance allowed the small spider to hunt a mantis prey that was approximately eight times its size.