How to Use praying mantis in a Sentence

praying mantis

noun
Definition of praying mantisnext
  • This praying mantis from France hasn’t been seen since 1860.
    — John R. Platt, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2021
  • Parasitic wasps, lady beetles and the king of the hill — the praying mantis — all feed on those bad guys.
    — Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 2 June 2023
  • Danes' eyes widen and her head tilts quizzically to one side like a praying mantis.
    — Txema Yeste, Marie Claire, 9 Jan. 2017
  • Unlike her mother, the little girl was not afraid of the praying mantis and was happy to have made a new bug friend.
    — Karen Zurawski, Houston Chronicle, 6 Mar. 2018
  • Some of her photos capture a praying mantis eating the head of her mate.
    — Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2023
  • The praying mantis is an insect that sometimes eats its mate.
    — WSJ, 16 June 2022
  • Reflective of Minecraft building blocks, schools of fish, sharks, and praying mantises snaked from screen to screen in a sea of blue.
    — Kalia Richardson, Rolling Stone, 4 Sep. 2023
  • Creepy Crawler Pumpkin Line the walkway to your front door with bugs of all kind — beetles, spiders, praying mantis, and more.
    — Annie O’Sullivan, Woman's Day, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Somewhat less common is the sale of live beetles or praying mantis species.
    — Doug Johnson, Ars Technica, 2 May 2022
  • In fact, the praying mantis continued to remain on Robles even after Phillies scored three runs to take the lead.
    — Gabrielle Chung, PEOPLE.com, 3 Aug. 2021
  • But the teensy brain of a praying mantis can see depth in these stimuli easily.
    — Sara Kiley Watson, Popular Science, 9 Jan. 2020
  • Well, when put that way, the whole praying mantis explosion almost sounds.. cute?
    — Kaitlin Menza, House Beautiful, 12 Dec. 2019
  • These prey-catching arms look somewhat like the front legs of a praying mantis, which gives these creatures their name – mantis shrimps.
    — Thomas Cronin, University Of Maryland, Discover Magazine, 3 Aug. 2018
  • From a distance, the dead leaf praying mantis resembles its namesake: brown, crispy and still.
    — Cara Giaimo, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2020
  • An armadillo, a praying mantis and a snake have appeared.
    — Christopher Arnott, courant.com, 20 June 2019
  • One other invertebrate, the praying mantis, evolved this way, as proven in their own tiny 3D glasses study from about a year ago.
    — Sara Kiley Watson, Popular Science, 9 Jan. 2020
  • Hoisted in the air and surrounded by scaffolding, the object’s two appendages stick out and run down its sides like the long, slender legs of a praying mantis.
    — New York Times, 28 Jan. 2021
  • Because get this: While many insects may see in 3D, experiments so far have only been able to show that for one insect, and that is the praying mantis.
    — Matt Simon, WIRED, 9 Aug. 2019
  • Unlike their magical namesake, the praying mantises of the Atlantic Forest are experts in the art of blending in.
    — Magnus Wennman, National Geographic, 17 June 2019
  • Next to them are a rabbit and a praying mantis, miniature painted in various layers of enamel, all set against an agate dial.
    — Carol Besler, Robb Report, 26 July 2022
  • Viewers who could tolerate a photograph of a praying mantis shredding a larva drew the line at seeing a snake swallow a mouse whole.
    — Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2023
  • In the end, Smith prevails in her battle, as a praying mantis devours another behind the closing credits.
    — Neena Rouhani, Billboard, 18 Apr. 2023
  • And surprisingly, so does the tiny-brained praying mantises.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 10 Feb. 2018
  • Just as the female praying mantis eats her mate after copulation, so too can borrowers and lenders fall swiftly out of love.
    — The Economist, 6 June 2020
  • Maryland is currently home to five species of praying mantis, but only one is native, which is the Carolina mantis.
    — Miri Talabac, Baltimore Sun, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Kreuze has been scooping the hordes of mantises into a giant box with the hope of giving them to someone who actually wants to live with praying mantises.
    — Jenny Hollander, Marie Claire, 9 Jan. 2019
  • There, a massive machine resembling a one-armed praying mantis was drilling 12-foot-long steel bolts into the treeless mountainside.
    — Michael Holtz, The Atlantic, 24 Jan. 2022
  • Now, as Ed Yong reports for the Atlantic, researchers equipped praying mantises with tiny goggles to figure out how stereopsis works in a critter with so few neurons.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 10 Feb. 2018
  • Pallid bats glean as much as half their body weight in prey every night, and their diet includes a wide range of crunchy little critters, including crickets, praying mantis, and beetles.
    — Christie Wilcox, Discover Magazine, 31 Aug. 2017
  • But Feord thinks the less stringent types of stereo vision present in the praying mantis and cuttlefish could constitute a powerful advantage.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'praying mantis.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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