{"id":29283,"date":"2021-06-21T09:03:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T13:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=29283"},"modified":"2021-06-17T00:04:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T04:04:02","slug":"you-never-doubted-it-did-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2021\/06\/you-never-doubted-it-did-you\/","title":{"rendered":"You never doubted it, did you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"juvenile
Because I’ve featured so many mantis photos in previous years, I have been lightening up on pursuing them recently unless I can see some specific behavior, but I still take the opportunity to snag a few photos when I can – especially if I find one feeding when I can take advantage of it. This Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis<\/em>) is on a potted curry plant, so-named not because it’s where curry comes from, but because it smells<\/em> like it should be. And the deer don’t like it, so it stands guard in front of plants that the deer do<\/em> like. The mantis itself is perhaps 30mm in overall length, so you can imagine how small the details are;<\/strong> I wasn’t going to get anything in there for scale without scaring off the mantis anyway. But after this establishing shot, I switched to the reversed 28-105 for much closer work.<\/p>\n

\"juvenile
The best I can say is that the meal looks like a tiny leafhopper to me, but I didn’t see the mantis make the capture and too much of it was already touring the mantis’ alimentary canal. If they have one. I imagine they do.<\/p>\n

This is a ‘stacked’ shot, meaning two frames with slightly different focus points were combined to make something with a little greater depth-of-field. At this magnification, depth-of-field is virtually a myth. And you can tell this was taken during the day because the mantis’ eyes are colored and not black.<\/p>\n

Getting the right flash angle was challenging, and in the course of attempting variations, the mantis spooked a little and went to another stem, but I was able to close in again and use the new perspective.<\/p>\n

\"juvenile
Halfway decent view of the palps, the ‘mouth fingers,’ and some unidentifiable fragments going down – this angle did not assist in my determination of the meal species at all. But you can see some unfocused fragments still clasped in a foreleg, which seem to show wing veins, so I’m staying with leafhopper. Unless it bothers you. If it bothers you, say so, and we can call it a roach if you like that better. Or whatever – I’m easy.<\/p>\n

This would have been better as video, but almost impossible. I was leaning in at precise angles among and between the curry leaves, which would have been extraordinarily hard to get a tripod to emulate, and by the time I managed such the mantis would likely have been done anyway, if I didn’t spook it to a new location in the attempt. I know my limits. I’ll get video of feeding, and\/or a capture, one of these days, but it will likely be with bigger specimens in undoubtedly better conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because I’ve featured so many mantis photos in previous years, I have been lightening up on pursuing them recently unless I can see some specific behavior, but I still take the opportunity to snag a few photos when I can – especially if I find one feeding when I can take advantage of it. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[1262,6211,1583,3189],"class_list":["post-29283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-chinese-mantis","tag-feeding-behavior","tag-leafhopper","tag-tenodera-sinensis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}