Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Praying Mantis

We found this guy (girl?) hanging out on our screen door. (Well actually there's glass in there right now, but calling it a glass door seems wrong. Maybe it's a storm door? I don't know.) It seems that every year around this time a praying mantis comes to visit. We (I) always get excited. We don't see them very often, so the kids kind of freak out when they discover one.
The first thing I always want to do is find an insect for it to eat. I find it fascinating the way they
devour their food. I usually try to get a fly so I won't feel too bad for the insect and the mantis doesn't seem to mind that they're dead. We couldn't find any flies, so I took pictures instead. He (she?) hung out on the front of our house for a couple of days before leaving (being eaten?).

1 comment:

The Lady said...

That's so funny - you and Dave are alike in your love of feeding praying mantises (is that a word?). It's also fun to put a male and female together to watch them mate. The male has to sneak up on her or she will eat him so it can take a couple of days for him to make his move. And if she happens to see him she will eat him in the act. GROSS!!