The Mantis Sees it All

In this episode we take a trip into the exciting world of insects - mantises to be precise. Prof Jenny Read and her colleague Dr Vivek Nityananda from Newcastle University in the UK have been conducting some exciting research into 3D vision of these iconic animals.
I have come across their research through an article in the New York Times and was hooked.

3D vision in insects? Yes, dear listeners, you read that right. Mantises have stereoscopic vision as well but not quite like humans. 
Given the fact that mantises are so much smaller and still capable of 3D vision - is there something we can learn from them with regards to practical applications and robotics?

Here some links you might want to check out:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/science/praying-mantis-eating-birds.html the New York Times article
• http://www.jennyreadresearch.com/research/m3/media/ some cool videos including how we can trace what's going on in a mantis brain
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26740144/  the paper of the research