Mantis Moves By Night

It's a little creepy with the porch light shining from behind and glowing through his limbs, eh?

The cat meowed until I came outside a while back, and there I saw a rather large praying mantis on the screen at face level with the cat.  I thanked her with a rub and ran for the camera, and then watched the mantis walk right off the screen onto the glass!  It's pretty amazing that it could hold on so easily.  I'm glad to see another mantis around... this is the third one I've seen (all very adult-size) since 2 weeks after they hatched, when they all became either good at hiding or dinner (for each other, not dinner for me!).  Speaking of Grumpy Cat, why do cats tend to bring me live toads and bugs??  I thought they were supposed to enjoy showing off their dead mice instead. 

The photo with flash was especially spine-tingling.

 "Sweet dreams!"

Mantis Update

There are only a few mantises left in the wine barrel. They've adopted a new behavior... whenever something rustles the herbs, they make an instant leap off of whatever branch they're on. I'm sure this leaping activity has had an effect on their immediate dispersal into the garden.

The few who have remained on the herbs seem to be rather enjoying themselves...

This baby mantis has caught a baby grasshopper for breakfast.

I watched one on the pathway, and it started to cross a 7-inch paving stone... it began skittering across in a panic, and died by the time it reached the other side. I was more than a little horrified that the ground was so hot that it was killing the little fellas, so I ended up misting water over all the surfaces to cool the garden down in the heat of the day.

I watched another one who was in the shade next to a trail of ants... it really, REALLY wanted to grab an ant, but it overshot each predatory lunge by about 200%. It was pretty hilarious, and it reminded me of Bambi sliding around on a frozen pond on its newborn gangly legs.

Peering Mantis

Mantises hatched out of ootheca

I have been checking the praying mantis ootheca every day, hoping to catch the little ones in the act of hatching. I missed the actual event, but saw them very soon after it had happened. The wine barrel of herbs was just swimming with mantii*! They are ridiculously small, and numerous... I predict that soon they will become hard to find, as they begin to eat each other for sustenance and spread throughout the garden. As someone who likes odd pets, I find them to be terribly adorable, as they try out their spindly new legs.

Little mantisling wanders across the oregano.

A baby mantis takes a moment in the thyme

Yes, this mantis is perching on a rosemary leaf. It is TINY!  I never would have noticed the copper line across their eyes if it weren't for my camera's zoom.

I am so thrilled to have witnessed the mantises' birthday, and hope that they will be happy here in the garden, gorging their little tummies on a variety of insect pests.

*Mantii and mantisling are not real words