Mantoid Ecology Revision

I decided to do a revision of the Mantoid Ecology since I feel my original ecology for them was not accuret as well as to deal with some of the things that got people confused in the passed...so here is the new Mantoid Ecology



Mantoids
Average Height: 5-80 feet tall
Mantoids are a species of hybrids with the torso of a person, but the bottom half of a large Praying Mantis. They also have large, sickle like spines that point out from the side of their arms and their nails are razor sharp. The often have athletic build are relatively tanned skin. Their Mantis half is typically green, but the color varies on location because Mantoids rely on their color to camouflage themselves with the environment. This makes them range from a large variety of colors, and some can be very beautiful to look at if you are lucky enough to find one.
Mantoids sport long antennae on their heads that vary in shape. Some are perfectly straight, some curve into a spiral and some curve behind their head. Mantoids have 4 legs, which some people get confused from because insects have 6 legs and Mantoids are based off an insect. It's the fact that Mantises use two of their limbs for actual fore arms, meaning Mantoids "human" arms are the extra two limbs. There are extremely rare subspecies of Mantoids that sport an extra two lings that resemble the scythes normal Mantises have, but they are very rare.
Mantoids end to be somewhat of an aggressive race. They live to play rough and somewhat adopted the harpy's way of talking with insults, just to a MUCH lesser extent. Also Mantoids tend to be fearless. They are will fight creatures much larger than themselves and no shot a bit of fear what so ever.
Mantoids originate in a peninsula in the far northeast of the Charted Felaryan Map. They deemed this homeland of theirs the Naikudo Peninsula. They are very common in the Peninsula…and only recently began to spread out across Felarya, making them somewhat of a more rare encounter outside the peninsula.
Mantoids are very dangerous predators despite being very uncommon in areas outside their homeland. They are very aggressive and possess a variety of dangerous abilities. Not only they are stealthy and can blend in with their surroundings to the point of seeming invisible, but they are extremely fast. They are even able to take flight for short periods of time to catch airborne pray. Their spines are perfectly capable of piercing their targets and their claws are capable of ripping their targets to shreds. Their most notable ability is their forearms speed. They are capable of lunging out and grabbing their target in mere milliseconds. Their palm strikes are so fast that they are near unavoidable. This trait comes from their Mantis side since Mantises are well known for their striking speed.
Mantoids diets consist on almost anything they can get their hands on, ranging from large animals to even other hybrid races, no matter what their size it. A Mantoid is willing to catch and kill something their own size to eat, in which they use there sharp teeth to rip into their flesh. Also like most Hybrid Predators, they tend to also catch smaller pray in which they swallow hole, but they much prefer to chew their food since the love the taste of blood. Their favorite pray are Dridders and harpies, this makes the relationship between these three predators rather hectic and it isn't a good idea to be between a Mantoid and a Dridder.
However, when Mantoid Children are younger, they hunt in a very different way. Mantoid children are usually 3 to 4 feet tall, and don't become larger like their parents and grow their wings until they reach the age of 20-25. Between the birth and adulthood, Mantoid children hunt in swarms of 30-50 of their brothers and sisters. They swarm their pray and proceed to eat their pray as if they were land piranhas. The Mantoid mother does contribute some food for her children as well, but not as often as one would think. In order to become a strong Mantoid, the let the children do most of their own hunting.
What sets apart the Mantoids from most Felaryan Predators is their unique cutler that not many other predators have. From birth, there is a Mantoid practice that the first Mantoid hatched from their egg, will be deemed the alpha Male/female of that group of Mantoid children, while the Mantoid who was the last to hatch from their egg would be deemed the weakest of the children. Mantoids take pride in their strength and are strict on how they raise their children the second they hatch.
Mantoids often live close to their brothers or sisters when they grow up, this is because during childhood, they grow really close to one another when they were a part of a swarm and continue to help one another out even after they grow up and move on. Often you will see a group of sister Mantoids living within a mile from one another.
Mantoids also take pride in their unique Martial arts. They developed a fighting style so unique, that they say that only a true Mantoid can master it. Some other races attempted to learn/ imitate such a unique fighting style, but none were able to come close to perfecting it. The Parents are required to teach their children as tradition, spreading their roots to the next generation of Mantoids. There is one Mantoid named Gottesan, who is said to be the sole Mantoid who greatly improved the traditional fighting style and is now the grand master. It is told that he has never lost a fight in his 500 years of life.
Some smaller Mantoids implemented Swordplay into their fighting styles and became sword Masters, they even are willing to teach other species such as Humans as apprentices.
Once every 10 years, a Traditional event is held on an island near the Naikudo Peninsula. They hold a Tournament like event where Mantoids from all over come and gather to show off their own variations of the traditional fighting style and the winner gets to train with the grand master Gottesan for a year.
The most notable and possibly the most talked about of their tradition is their mating. After mating and the female becomes pregnant, her abdomen becomes swollen from all the eggs and this makes movements very difficult for her, making hunting nearly impossible. Tradition is that the couple spends an entire day with each other, making the best day they have ever had and show how much they love one another, then at the end of the day, the female eats the male Mantoid. This is the female will have all the nutrients she needs in order to live long enough to lay the eggs as well as support the growing eggs inside her. To them, this is the ultimate way of showing their love for one another, even if others look down upon it. Though this tradition is mostly practice on the Naikudo peninsula and is practiced less often the father away from the homeland. This is because, unlike their homeland, the Mantoids aren't the dominate predators, making survival much harder as well as finding an actual mate.

Still a few issues, I think...

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they are stealthy and can blend in with their surroundings to the point of seeming invisible

That... just isn't going to work with mantoids. Not with their human torso. Real mantises only work because their entire body is made to blend in with their surroundings. With a mantoid, like half their body just can't do that. Also...they're giants. You just can't be "invisible" at that size. It's like with nagas, they can't blend in like real snakes. They have to rely on being very silent (for their size) and picking the right times to ambush. I think mantoids would need similar methods. It isn't like they're dryads who can just make their human half disappear through illusions.

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They are even able to take flight for short periods of time to catch airborne pray.

Just remember to keep in mind that preying mantises (especially the females due to them being so much larger) are fairly clumsy flyers. They only really take flight to get from one hunting perch to another, or as a last-resort to escape from danger. They aren't designed for long-distance flying, or any kinds of acrobatics.

Not really a criticism, just something to keep in mind.

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Mantoid children are usually 3 to 4 feet tall, and don't become larger like their parents and grow their wings until they reach the age of 10

Giant hybrids usually take about 40 years to reach adulthood. They mature much slower than humans do. A creature going from 3-4 feet tall, to giant-sized in just 10 years just would not work. It'd be like a baby growing into an adult by the time they were 3. Giant hybrids need that maturation period, not only to take a believable amount of time to get big, but also to learn to survive. It takes time to get to the upper portion of the food chain, and a great many young predators do not survive that long. Mantoids living in self-supporting swarms of up to 50, and only taking 10 years to reach giant size is very unbalanced compared to everything else. You also have the adults keeping watch on their kids too, further increasing the survival rate of an already massive number of quickly-growing kids. Their population would explode to crazy levels compared to other giant hybrid species.

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Tradition is that the couple spends an entire day with each other, making the best day they have ever had and show how much they love one another, then at the end of the day, the female eats the male Mantoid. This is the female will have all the nutrients she needs in order to live long enough to lay the eggs as well as support the growing eggs inside her

I still have issues with this. Not only would it still be a gruesome and blatant act of cannibalism, but its reasoning still makes no sense. One meal is not going to sustain a mother mantoid for a month or more (and I hope it is more than one month for a clutch of giant pred eggs to develop). She probably would not even be able to eat all of the male before he spoils either. It isn't like they have plastic wrap and refrigerators. Her window to feed is very small and you can't eat a whole person in one sitting.

Also, the practice of female mantises eating their mates is more myth than fact. They only do it in captivity or when under extreme stress. It is about as much fact as lemmings throwing themselves off of cliffs. Only a few mantis species are known to engage in this act, and even then, they don't always do it under natural conditions.

The overall idea (Preying Mantis hybrids) is not bad, but some of your anatomical and biological choices range from odd, to just makes no sense. There are some serious inconsistencies and strange choices that I think still need to be worked out before this species can feel anywhere close to believable.

I apreciate your critique and here are my replies

I stated that the mantoids are variety of colors...never stated that their skin had to be the same pigment as well...one can safely assume that manoids can have the same skin color as their lower half...and it is possible for a human to look near invisable if they caoplage (which is spelled wrong most likly) just right...this would be the same case for these guys...especially since alot of plant life in Felarya grow at giant size as well so there would be plenty of things to blend in with...

For flying...I do know that in fact that pray mantises dont fly well...I never stated in the bio that they flew well...I even put "for short periods" in the bio to show that they cant fly like harpies and still will have to use stealth if they with to use this skill to catch pray...as I see it they would fly when they want to get somewhere fast or perhaps to extend their jumps...

I understand the age thing...and yeah I do guess you are right about predators aking longer to reach their full size...the reason I put 10 years was because I felt that it would be very odd for them to remain only 3 feet tall for a real long time and tha Mantoids arent the largest of predators to begin with...also was trying to urge that they leave their "swarms" a bit fater...but I'll try to come up with a more suitable date...perahps 20 years or a litle more...

kikijonson wrote:

I apreciate your critique and here are my replies

I stated that the mantoids are variety of colors...never stated that their skin had to be the same pigment as well...one can safely assume that manoids can have the same skin color as their lower half...and it is possible for a human to look near invisable if they caoplage (which is spelled wrong most likly) just right...this would be the same case for these guys...especially since alot of plant life in Felarya grow at giant size as well so there would be plenty of things to blend in with...

For flying...I do know that in fact that pray mantises dont fly well...I never stated in the bio that they flew well...I even put "for short periods" in the bio to show that they cant fly like harpies and still will have to use stealth if they with to use this skill to catch pray...as I see it they would fly when they want to get somewhere fast or perhaps to extend their jumps...

I understand the age thing...and yeah I do guess you are right about predators aking longer to reach their full size...the reason I put 10 years was because I felt that it would be very odd for them to remain only 3 feet tall for a real long time and tha Mantoids arent the largest of predators to begin with...also was trying to urge that they leave their "swarms" a bit fater...but I'll try to come up with a more suitable date...perahps 20 years or a litle more...

Mantoids are around 80ft tall. It isn't like they're jumping-dridders. I think anything less than 30 years to reach full-size is too short, personally.

Also, a lot of the problem is the swarm itself. Mantoids have way too many children, and the children and parents keeping so close only makes things worse. No other species of giant pred reproduces in such massive numbers. If you want to have them being all close-knit and supporting, they need to have way less children. The whole "swarm" thing is just too much.

It isn't like we have dridders giving birth to 100's of offspring at a time just because real spiders do. Generally, the larger something is, the less offspring it will have. With the way you currently have it, I don't see how the mantoid population could be sustainable in their homeland. Too many kids being born, with a system in place that ensures most survive to adulthood.

well the reason why they ahve so much is because of the swarm iself...there are bound to be some of the children who wont make it...so if you think about it...a swarm of 30 manoids would end up being 10 by the time they reach adulthood if they are lucky...

kikijonson wrote:

well the reason why they ahve so much is because of the swarm iself...there are bound to be some of the children who wont make it...so if you think about it...a swarm of 30 manoids would end up being 10 by the time they reach adulthood if they are lucky...

...That's still 10 full-grown preds who will then have 30-50 kids of their own someday.

When most giants are only having a small handful of kids (I think more than 3 surviving kids, maybe 5 over multiple reproductive cycles, is too much), having that many actually making it to adulthood to reproduce again just seems like too much.

Gotta agree with Cliff on this, Kiki. No matter how you put it that still leaves a huge amount of mantoids that will explosively breed a lot more mantoids in a short time with little in the way to keep their numbers in check OR sustain their numbers to begin with. Real mantids don't have that many offspring either. Unless you want mantoids to out-crowd every other giant race in Felarya, which i'm sure you don't, you have to cut the numbers down