John Fusco
Registered User

Fan Cha reacts even while in stillness—an attitude of alertness from his head as it rotates with a kind of hydraulic smoothness, compound eyes locking onto the target. While I wait with admitted excitement for the big strike (one can feel the impending action in the mantid’s stillness, like a coiled spring), Fan Cha begins his subtle but rhythmic rocking and swaying…and then something I never expected. While rooting himself deep and low with his rear legs, he uses one of those nimble tibias to probe out deceptively, as natural as if it were a part of a leaf on a breeze, and “redirects” the scampering fruit bug’s path so that it stays within the “striking measure.” It works. The fruit fly changes his angle, crosses into range and--SNATCH! The low rooted stance unfurls forward with a strike faster than the human eye. As he goes for the prey’s head,
my magnifying glass reveals a mouth that shears and tears. A biologically-designed killing machine…