This Brown Mantid was on my door for hours. I find him quite amazing. For those of you that might not appreciate looking him/her in the eye I made the image thumbnail size. LOL
If ever you wanted to see a praying mantid/mantis close up without it biting you or flying on you here’s your chance. This is certainly not a prize winning photo. It’s a quick capture of a bug on my door right after it sank his little claws in my right upper arm.
I found out today that these little carnivores are capable of eating small mammals like humming birds and little bitty mice. Despite popular belief the female doesn’t always eat her mate. And, did you know in some countries the praying mantid/mantis is an endangered species? My gracious.
Guess how you can tell the difference between the male and female? A male has more abdominal segments than a female. A female has 6. A male has 7. How cool is that. From my photo I wasn’t able to determine the sex. I’m not sure where to start counting either. Does the very last little sticking out stinger appearing thingie count as a segment? I have no clue. All I know is before I hit the sheets I’ll take one more look of my mantid/mantis bite, put some sort of gel on it and lay my head down.
Night
Austin
You got bit by the praying mantis? Didn’t know they did that. Someone random told me they are either Chinese Mantis or American, and that one is brown and the other green.
There’s a large variety of Mantids, different sizes, different colours, etc.
What I should have said is the Mantid pinched me with her front legs.
If you google images of a praying mantis you can see a wide variety of them.
Smiles to you and yours,
Austin