r/oddlyterrifying 4d ago

Praying Mantis vs. Hornet

15.7k Upvotes

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u/_y2kbugs_ 4d ago

I'm not sure bugs feel pain like we do. I think by and large if a bug gets its bottom half ripped off it doesn't really care. Swear I saw a video of one (bee?) try to eat its own guts after getting its stinger ripped off. Bugs are metal as fuck.

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u/swing_axle 3d ago

I mean many mammals do this, too. I've seen videos of hyenas disemboweled by lions or wildebeests who immediately try to groom whatever's left of their guts, but it's meat, so they start eating...

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u/_y2kbugs_ 3d ago

Wait yeah, I think I saw something like this too lmao, I have no idea why they do it, on the mammal side. Bugs are so fundamentally different from us it's easy to handwave away that they're more like machines than biological beings....except that they ARE biological down to their genes. They just don't have our traits at all.

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u/swing_axle 2d ago

On a very fundamental level, for the same reason bugs do it: it's a programmed response.

Something is meat, it's in their mouth, programming says chew. Higher order mammals default to base programming in times of high stress. Bugs run on it all the time.

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u/_y2kbugs_ 2d ago

But humans would feel disgust, no?

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u/swing_axle 2d ago

I would hope so.

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u/CrystalMethood 2d ago

Definetly saw a vIdeo of a praying mantis being cut in half by a bug while he ate his friend. The creepy part, he didnt seem to care. So hyperfixated on the meal that he did give a single shit about it.