Meeting Abstract
Raptorial appendages have evolved multiple times in arthropods, lending these groups to studies on comparative biomechanics and evolution of raptorial strikes. While the strike kinematics of mantises and mantis shrimp are well studied, comparatively little is known about the strikes of other raptorial arthropod groups, including mantisflies (Family Mantispidae). Here, we use high speed videography to characterize strike kinematics of two mantisfly species: Climaciella brunnea (Say) and Dicromantispa sayi (Banks), and compare these results to published data on the strikes of mantises and mantis shrimp. We found that C. brunnea and D. sayi have strikes comparable to mantises, with the femur (the primary lever arm in both groups) reaching maximum rotational velocities similar to mantises (2500-5600 deg/s). The speeds of these strikes suggest that, unlike mantis shrimp, mantisflies are not using a spring and latch system to increase the power output of their strikes. The biggest difference between mantises and mantisflies is in the starting angle of the coxa-femur joint. In mantisflies, the femur starts at an initial angle of -30 degrees prior to the initiation of the strike and moves through an arc of 120-200 degrees, compared to an initial femoral angle of 5-10 degrees and an arc of around 70 degrees in mantises. This likely gives mantisflies more time to accelerate their femurs to a higher peak velocity, and may help to compensate for their smaller femur extensor muscles housed within their thin coxae. This study is the first to characterize the kinematics of mantisfly strikes. Future work will attempt to characterize the strike kinematics of other raptorial limbed arthropods, with the goal of conducting a large scale comparative study across groups.
