Still not keeping up with the post count, and I feel absolutely awful, I’m here to tell you (okay, no I don’t, just slightly contrite, but not so much that a shrug can’t dismiss it.) And the subjects haven’t improved, though I did make a couple of attempts at something a little different, with no success as yet. But here’s another scale comparison, because each of these is full-frame and taken at the same magnification, so the size differential is accurate.
The first one is a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina;) as I said before, they’re smaller and hatch later than the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis,) which are the next two, both adults now, and quite possibly male and female in order. Then we have a juvenile green treefrog (Hyla cinerea,) much smaller than adult size. All three mantids were on the same Japanese maple, but the treefrog was on the hosta on the other side of the house. Still nothing to give a direct impression of scale, but the treefrog was about the length of your top finger joint, if that helps.
Still too hot to really go anywhere; I made the mistake of doing a little exertive gardening work yesterday after I took these (hacking down a couple of unwanted, incredibly fast-growing saplings,) and about wrecked myself. I was sweating so copiously the salt may kill all the garden plants anyway. Maybe I’ll dig out some winter pics – we could use ’em.