There were few glimpses of my favorite bug, the mantis, around the house this year. There were isolated sightings during spring, but not many beyond that, for my part anyway. It was Monica–not me–who had the sharper eye when it came to spotting them on nearly every occasion.
Most of my interactions with mantises are fairly routine. I’ll see one in the roses or on the carport fence. Then I’ll run for the camera or phone and reel off a few frames and hope there’s enough depth of field to make a worthwhile photo. For example, I shot a photo of a juvenile mantis on Monica’s finger tip while doing yard work in early June. And between her movement, my movement and the bug’s movement, I’m still surprised I got any of the frame sharp.
I would like to get a photo of a mantis actually stalking its prey one day. Given the seemingly high number of grasshoppers this summer, I thought my chances of seeing a mantis-grasshopper showdown were pretty good. It never happened. In July, Monica (of course) did run across a molted mantis exoskeleton in the carport. That process would make for an interesting time-lapse clip, I think.
But the most interesting mantis photo I took this year was hardly routine. It was a picture of a yellow jacket eating away at the ruptured abdomen of a mantis on our porch in early September. And yes, it was Monica once again that first spotted this “circle of life” moment. We speculated that the mantis may have tangled with a garden spider that had set up camp near our porch light, and that the mantis might have been injured or poisoned by the spider.
There was actually a team of three or four yellow jackets preying on the defenseless mantis, taking turns at it. It was something of an “a-ha moment” for me. I always thought the praying mantis was the apex “badass of the backyard.” I guess I can’t say that anymore.
The following morning I checked the porch to see what, if anything was left of the mantis. It was still alive, but barely so. I scooped it up with a piece of paper and deposited it in one of the cotoneaster in the backyard, thinking it’s better to expire in the bush than on cold concrete.
