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
Do you realize it’s been sixteen days without a mantis picture? Lucky I came prepared.
The largest one is being found routinely now among the peonies, so from time to time I have to do a portrait session. This is at night.
It’s funny how subtle differences can change the ‘feel’ of an image. Above, the mantis seems like it’s looking directly at you, because
You know, I started wondering why I’ve never tackled this before, and then I realized it was because I never had something handy to use for the comparison.
You remember the photo from an earlier post, showing the newborn Chinese mantids (Tenodera sinensis) clustered on a twig? You know, this one:
That was taken within 24 hours of hatching, and while I have nothing to provide
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
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
Monday I observed (and posted about) the newborn Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis,) while wondering if the all of the viable eggs had hatched – I’ve seen cases produce multiple ‘broods,’ for want of a better word. I was up late Monday night, so didn’t get out as early as I should have Tuesday morning. Nature has a way of making one regret such actions
I mentioned earlier, I believe, that I had a few mantis egg sacs that I was watching to see if they’d hatch, the intention being (of course) to photograph their emergence in better detail than before. One of the sacs was in the front garden where most of my mantis images from the past two years have been
Is there a blog in existence that hasn’t gotten off at least one Monty Python reference? It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?
We’re still dealing with the lingering effects of the cold spell, meaning it gets chilly at night and well into the morning, so I haven’t expected much to be happening on the arthropod front and haven’t really been looking. Today, however, while
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
Sorry, more mantids, but you can’t watch the life cycle of several local individuals, including hundreds if not thousands of photos (I have not tallied them up yet, but mind you, these are the keepers) and not want to maintain updates.
First off, if you’re going to have an interest in entomology, it seems prudent to check several sources for information, as well as to keep checking