Yosemite's Strangest Love Story | America's National Parks | National Geographic

2m read

·Nov 10, 2024

NARRATOR: From Yosemite's iconic green valley to its secret eastern edge. The little rain reaches this arid landscape, blocked by over 13,000 feet of solid Sierra Nevada. An alien desert-like habitat, home to one of the park's strangest females: a praying mantis.

It's the last days of summer in Yosemite, and she's coming to the end of her seasonal feeding spree. Her main weapons are prominent front legs lined with shark tooth-shaped spikes. The praying mantis is the only insect on the planet with three-dimensional vision. Her lightning fast strike clocks at 1/20 of a second. But this is only a cricket drumstick appetizer.

She releases a concoction of alluring pheromones into the air. Oh do mantis. One lucky guy picks up the signal. Maybe some eye contact can smooth out this first date, or maybe not. In exchange for his would-be wooing, the Casanova is attacked. It's impossible for him to free himself. The male's head is ripped off—the female's final main course.

It's an abrupt end to a first date. Or is it? The decapitated male is still moving. The headless torso of the male praying mantis is still controlled by nerves in the abdomen. In a final mating act, his body completes what his head started. The female, on the other hand, is busy finishing dinner.

She'll mate with multiple males each breeding season. Not all of them will suffer the same fate. But the males who are decapitated may father the most eggs. The ultimate sacrifice in a unique Yosemite love story.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Atomic radii trends | Atomic models and periodicity | High school chemistry | Khan Academy

Let That Be a Lesson

View All

#shorts The Fastest Way To Make a Million Dollars

The fastest way to make a million dollars is to make the first 10,000. That’s really how it works. But really, it’s not about anything else except focusing on what people want and how to solve their problems. People get wealthy not pursuing money out of …

Constitutional compromises: The Three-Fifths Compromise | US government and civics | Khan Academy

[Instructor] In the last video, we discussed one of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention, the compromise of the electoral college. In this video, I want to discuss a different compromise: the compromise over slavery. Now, you’ll remembe…

Why Startup Founders Should Launch Companies Sooner Than They Think

What’s going on is that founders are just, they’re embarrassed about the state of their own product. They’ve come from companies that have mature, polished products, and they compare their launch to like an Apple launch. If Apple fumbles a launch, the wor…

Analyzing vertical asymptotes of rational functions | High School Math | Khan Academy