As the Chinese mantises have been molting into final instar, which means reproducing adult phase, they have abandoned the plants with smaller leaves and hiding spots, relinquishing them to the smaller, later developing Carolina mantises (Stagmomantis carolina.) And of course, among the prime choices for these are the butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii,) which produce
Tag: Stagmomantis carolina
Here and… well, here
Continuing the posting of recent-ish photos (meaning those mostly taken while I was hashing out my ignorance of PHP to make things look ‘acceptable,’) we have these various offerings from the environs immediately surrounding Walkabout Studios, what the proletariat tend to refer to as the “front and back yards” we will attempt to elevate this missive by using,
Brevity, let’s see, brevity…
You and I both know I’m not too familiar with the concept, but we’ll make the attempt, okay?
Anyway, I have a buttload of photos that I’d like to feature before I even get to the beach trip, but not enough time to do detailed posts about them, so I’ll toss down some brief descriptions and possibly send the rest over to the Latest Images page. Sound like a plan?
I
Let’s play catchup
By about this time in the past few years, I would have posted roughly four thousand mantis pictures. I am definitely behind those numbers this year, so let’s see if we can rectify that.
To begin with, I was super-prepared this spring, having ordered a bunch of Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) egg cases – called “oothecas” if you want to get technical or simply confuse
An autumn grab bag
So, a few days back we finally got out and found some decent fall colors, emphasizing just how widely variable the area is. A week earlier, the ineluctable Al Bugg and I had visited a spot on a river just a handful of kilometers north, and found most of the trees by the water well past peak and, in fact, bare. Then
Make mine a double
The other day I commented that the immortal (so far) Mr Bugg had failed to beat me to the punch in posting something from our mutual outing before I did. What I was forgetting was that he apparently lives across two international date lines, so while it was Sunday here, it was Friday there. Thus, he still managed to post a day ahead of me, we just had to wait another day to see it…
Regardless,
Get your mind out of the gutter
Since I had to get up early this morning, naturally I was up late last night checking out the little pond in the yard. The larger frogs have all moved on, to be replaced by five smaller frogs (all green frogs, Lithobates clamitans, I believe,) and a huge number of tadpoles and newborn minnows. But the thing that captured my attention was, once again, an insect.
Atop the leaves of the pond plants
Mantodea reditum
That means, “return to the mantids.” Maybe. Probably not – it’s Latinish, one of many languages I have mastered not in the slightest form whatsoever.
Lest you think something has terrible happened to my mind, I hasten to assure you that I have been keeping tabs on the mantises, even when I haven’t been posting anything. There is now a vast size
A tiny bit of diversity
The hatched Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) that I posted about earlier – and near-perpetually on this blog, really – have spread out across the front yard to some fairly remote locations remote, at least, for something that measures 10mm in body length. Above, one stalks among the leaves of a creeping jenny plant, while at left
A year-end retrospective
Two years ago at the last day of the year, I posted a series of pics intended for blog posts that had simply never made it, and I am doing the same again this time, with one small addition: I am posting a photo taken within each month, and adding a link to my favorite post(s) for each month as well. It’s kind of like those TV programs that can’t be bothered with new