The mantis is back! Well, Fernymoss spotted and caught a mantis again a few times last week. He took these two shots last Tuesday as s/he was hanging out on the stucco near the back door of the house. We're pretty sure this isn't the one he brought back from work a while ago, but we're not ruling out either that it might be the little one I spotted on the Coreopsis earlier in the summer.This got us to thinking about whether Mantids have the capability to change colour to blend in with the surroundings, especially since this one was playing near invisible on the stucco. I don't recall reading anything about such a talent, but with the huge number of species of Mantids, I can't say definitively ... I'm not an entomologist, nor do I try to play one on this blog. So your guess is as good as mine!
Notes on these shots: Taken by Fernymoss, 11 September, 2007. I think the first shot really gives a good view of the wings in detail, something that we don't usually focus on (at least I don't) probably because the pincers are so arresting that our attention naturally goes there directly. There's so much to take in when looking at a Mantis, and since time is usually pretty short to view them, I think it's just amazing that we sometimes have the chance to capture them up so close. The second shot could easily be called here's looking at you, for obvious reasons! If you look really closely at the enlarged version, you can actually see its pupils.
7 comments:
Hi there IVG ... Great to see that the mantids stuck around this summer ... :) Excellent close up work Fernymoss ... you can really see the details on the large size!
(I snipped the prickly datura seed pods tonight -- two had already ruptured ... o o ... lol)
What, you didn't tag it? :-D
Mantises are great, especially when they chow down on other buglies.
Hiya IVG.
Great picture of the mantids Ferny Moss. It appears I've got a lot of reading and pictures to catch up on.
Hope all is well and keep the pictures coming.
Hola amigo, hope you and the rest of the gang are doing well at Chez IVG.
Until a couiple of years ago I had never even seen one of these in our garden. Now they seem to be everywhere. The ones I see are always green,even when I saw one on stucco last year,so I don't know about them changing to surroundings or not.
I am now in clean up mode in the garden,it looked so bad this summer and back pain has really effected my abilities. I will be happy to just get the big stuff cut down and some tulips I ordered planted in one of the beds. I hope the other tulips had a chance to gain energy after they died so ealy this year. I have several hundred bulbs out there.
Hola Manny! Great to see you stopping by! (I know I'm remiss, but you and Bud will forgive me, I hope!) There was also a spider involved in this sighting (who has now disappeared, hmmmm) but I didn't want to post it, for obvious reasons, hehe.
I too hope that all is well with you and Bud out there, and that you're cooling down as well come fall. One of these chilly days to come soon, I plan to make your posole recipe!
Hey there Aplseed! Good to see you stopping by here ... I really like the stuff you've done on flickr. Nice to see fellow IA gardeners coming by to my humble abode here. I know what you mean about things getting out of hand this summer ... it was a strange year with that early spring cold spell. Our bulbs just weren't what they would have been either. We have hundreds of tulips and daffodils and such that got zapped by that cold weather in April too. With any luck, we'll see a more 'normal' spring next year! It certainly did affect how things did around here this year!
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