Responses to moving small-field stimuli by the praying mantis, Sphodromantis lineola (Burmeister)

Adult, female praying mantises, Sphodromantis lineola (Burmeister), were presented with mechanically driven or computer generated stimuli in a series of seven experiments in order to test several hypotheses regarding visual prey recognition. When presented with a series of square black and white computer generated stimuli against a white background, mantises performed the highest rates of predatory behavior in response to those stimuli with a greater proportion of black versus white pixels (i.e., those that produced larger luminance decrements). Higher response rates to computer generated stimuli that produced larger luminance decrements were also seen when the stimuli were irregularly shaped or consisted of two small synchronized stimuli. Mantises responded characteristically to mechanically driven stimuli that were camouflaged to match the background against which they moved, preferring small (vs. large) squares and rectangles that were elongated parallel (vs. perpendicular) to their direction of movement. Finally, response rate to a small, preferred mechanically presented or computer generated stimulus was suppressed by a concurrent large-field stimulus in inverse proportion to the distance between the two stimuli. This phenomenon is characteristic of systems that include phasic lateral inhibitory circuits. All of these results are consistent with the existence of a movement detector visual sub-system, as found in other orthopteromorph insects such as acridid grasshoppers and cockroaches.