Mantis and her meal

I came upon a gruesome but equally fascinating scene, where a brown bunny mantis was hunting a black prince cicada.

The hunt was a success and for a few short moments the cicada fought back emitting some high-pitched screams, but the mantis had such a firm grip with those raptorial forelegs and immediately began eating the pronotum, behind the eyes.

These cicadas are native to the east coast here in Australia. The predominantly black form from Sydney, Central Coast and up to my area is commonly known as black prince, while the term silver knight is used for the species as a whole.

This was a fantastic example of the daily struggles of life and death within the natural world, the constant effort that goes in to finding the next sustaining meal.

The cicada was around 35 cm body length.