I was sitting out on our deck the other evening reading Vincent Bugliosi’s obit and sipping on a Sunshine Wheat when I felt a bug on my arm. “Goddamn mosquitos,” I thought, looking to crush the bloodsucker. I stopped before I swung. Turns out it was a mantis nymph about a half-inch long that landed on me. It raced down my arm and made the 5-inch leap from my elbow onto the table before I coaxed it back onto my finger.

I’m fascinated by praying mantises. In my book, they’re the badasses of backyard bugs:  exotically ominous, solitary, stealthy. And I’ll usually run for a camera when I happen across one of them. My efforts are typically undone by shallow depth of field, but despite the focus falling off so quickly, I still like this picture.