When you spend all spring and summer tracking the praying mantids that have hatched and taken up residence locally, naturally you want to see the whole cycle, and that means the production of the egg sac as well. Of course, they’re not inclined to do this for an audience, so a bit of luck is involved, luck that I did not have this year. I watched one particular female
Tag: Chinese mantis
The stories go on
This is the follow-up to several different posts made earlier in the year – it gives an indication not just of what life in the arthropod world is like, but how I pursue nature photography as well.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been five areas of the front yard that served as “photo subject preserves,” areas where I could frequently find something to photograph. Early
I had to
Couldn’t pass up this post, which is going to be long without being wordy. I know you don’t believe me, so watch carefully.
Some of my resident mantids have gone missing for the past week or so, but the brown one returned last night. This evening at dusk, it had no sooner ventured out than it snagged
A peek at the process
We had gone through a longish period with no rain, and the azalea bushes were started to suffer from it. So I pulled out the hose and gave them a good soaking, with a heavy stream directed at the base to reach the roots, then a light misting over the top to make the insects happy. Almost immediately, the one brown resident mantis scampered excitedly into the water. I really can’t
Just a drop, please?
One of those things I had to share. Out early the other morning after an overnight rain, I was examining the azalea bush for interesting stuff, mostly looking for a way to use the rising sun and the raindrops creatively. One of the little mantises was too deep among the leaves to catch the sun, but as I watched, it engaged in a behavior I’ve never seen: it
Bugfest
One of those items on my mental list of images to capture is the emergence of newborn mantises from their egg sac. I’ve gotten recently hatched nymphs a couple of times, but none ever emerging.
On spotting an egg sac near the pond in the park close by a few days ago, I found dangling debris, the shredded structure of the sac, that indicates the hatching has already occurred.
[Sniff] They grow up so fast!
You might remember the above image from a post earlier this year. It came from April, when several newly-hatched praying mantises, probably Chinese mantises (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis) were found to be inhabiting the azalea bushes that flanked our porch. I was, of course, delighted,
Classical allusions
Just in case you were wondering what might have become of my Rubenesque models from this post, they’re still around, living happily (I’m assuming) in the azalea bushes out front – I make it a point to see if I can find them daily. The number I can spot varies at least one is a regular