In response to Joan Bergstrom's query about the rumors of mantids eating
hummingbirds.... a couple of weeks ago a friend temporarily parked a
medium-sized mantis in her nicely set up vivarium containing poison-arrow
frogs. The mantis demolished a frog in short order, and showed no ill
effects. I was impressed, and I grew up watching tropical mantids in Sri
Lanka! I don't think what you've heard is totally out of the question, and
I'd be interested to know if there's any hard data on this.

James West