I mentioned the mantis in the flowers the other day. I go out and check on her everyday but the past couple of days I haven’t seen her. After googling mantises (manti??) it said they only live for about a year. At some point, they even grow wings to fly off and find a mate! So today, I noticed the new blooms on the rosebush had a bunch of aphids on them and thought that’d be good munchin’ for the mantis. I tried hard to find her and she was still nearby, just not in her usual place. After a while I managed to carefully catch her and take her to the roses. I put her RIGHT ON the aphids and she didn’t seem to care. She walked around for a while but seemed a little weirded out by the whole thing. So as I was filming her, she reached out to me and crawled on my finger! It was so sweet. I took her back to the other flowers and all is well in the world again. I thought it was odd because I’ve tried to coax her onto my finger before and she just ran. Sorry for the blur factor in the beginning there, camera didn’t know what to focus on. And for whatever reason, the video on youtube looks a little better than it does below if you want to see that one instead here. Enjoy!
Wonderful! Who knew a mantis was so picky? Great blog photo, BTW.
Thanks! Yeah, I thought it would appreciate all the ‘free food’. Seemed like good bite sized morsels to me, like mantis popcorn. Maybe she was just scared being in a new place.
When I was in elementary school, we found an enormous praying mantis in our garden. Of course I wanted to take it to show and tell, so my father complied and urged it into a 1 quart mason jar. It was so big that it extended from the mouth of the jar to the bottom and its abdomen had to curl and partially rest on the bottom. Perhaps because it was uncomfortable or maybe because a critter that size gets awfully hungry, it took a big bite out of my father’s thumb before the lid closed.
Everyone in my class was very impressed by it, but once the school day was over, it was returned to our garden, none the worse for wear.
You’d think that was the only praying mantis story I have, but no… In second grade in the winter, a student found a chrysalis and thinking it was a potential butterfly, she brought it to school in a jar with small holes punched in the top. We all went home for the weekend, leaving the chrysalis in the jar on the heating unit. When we arrived back at school on Monday morning all surfaces were covered with baby praying mantises who had hatched and crawled out of the jar through the holes. I don’t think we got a lot done in class that day.
That’s it…I’m done. Your mantis is quite lovely!
Haha that’s awesome! Thanks for sharing that!! Those babies are so cute though, aren’t they? I had seen a tiny one out back one time sitting on top of a big sunflower. Did you know they have 5 eyes!? Makes wearing glasses a little difficult.
That was a great video and Ms Mantis looked very sweet but I have to say, I was grateful that she didn’t mistake you for a male and that it wasn’t mating season. That tail looked lethal and poised to turn her from a Praying Mantis to a Preyng Mantis! Better you holding her than I, although I did hold a few tarantulas the other day and they didn’t kill me – rather sweet, too. But give me a dog anyday!
Hey! Good for you holding the tarantulas. They are kinda sweet as long as you don’t freak them out! Glad you liked the video…it was a nice bonding moment. I’m about to go out and say hi to her now!