Winged Mantis

About a half hour after yesterday's picture.

Molting Mantis

The mantis hanging out in the grass moves around every day, but Sunday it was time to molt. So I found it hanging from the grass trying to get out of its skin and let its new wings dry.

August Mantis

They're always an inch long when they disappear, then I finally see one and it's almost the size of my hand. This one is hanging out in the zebra grass.

Preying Mantis

We just keep avoiding a frost, so the preying mantis keep popping up. Mom watched this one for almost two hours yesterday waiting for me to get home to take pictures. At least seeing them multiple times ups the chances of finding egg cases some time.

Adult Mantis

This year's adult sighting decided to be tricky and picked brown as a disguise instead of green. She was hiding in the false blue indigo. I wouldn't be surprised if there is another hiding in the strawberries. I rather hope there is at least a male hiding out there so this one will lay an egg case or two.

Adult Mantis

Well I've seen my adult mantis, just one day earlier then last year. My guess is female based on size and belly segments, but you never know. Just to be contrary this one was brown where last years was green.

Mantis on Strawberry

So, I've spotted at least three of these guys now. The above is a better show of their size. That is an over sized strawberry leaf.

Mantis

Pretend I haven't been missing. Here's another mantis. I'm excited because last year I didn't find any mid-sized mantis. I found an adult and plenty up to 1" long, but no signs of anything in the middle. This one was 2"-3" long. I actually found another one and coaxed it onto my hand but didn't have anything but my phone. As that picture is awful I won't try to figure out how to get an image off my painfully old phone.

Mantis' Growing

Several of the little mantis are hanging out where they are easy to find. They do prefer to face the camera.

Mantis Hatching

The little guys from the egg case finally hatched. I had mostly given up on them so two months ago I'd put them in a glass jar with a screen cover. This morning they were swarming ready to go out. I hope they have enough time to get big enough to breed this year. They're almost a month later then last year's set. The egg case can be seen in an earlier post.

Mantis Signs

While this is certainly not my best picture ever, I'm ridiculously excited about the content. While rambling around the yard today my mother spotted this and asked what it might be. It's an egg case, from the preying mantids I released last year. I stuck a milk crate over it so I don't manage to crunch it in my spring garden cleaning. I'm ecstatic. I was considering driving an hour to the butterfly place I go the egg case last year just so I'd gt more mantids. Looks like I won't have go (too bad there's a cheese-making store near by I want to visit, they do have other butterflies available however so maybe I'll go anyway). They should be Mantis religiosa, the European mantis. I'd rather the Carolina mantis, but I haven't seen any available.

I also mixed up 5 different lettuce seed types today and planted them under the plastic sheet hoop house that managed to survive the winter. I'll be trying to plant more in about two weeks if these ones come up.

Now all I need to figure out is how to get native grasshoppers back in the yard. We had plenty when I was a kid, but they've dwindled and I haven't seen any in several years. We'll be tilling the dirt this year and trying more seriously to get some grass. I would love to have back the mix of green and tan grasshoppers we had before.

Baby Mantis

Another anticipating summer picture. In May of last year I released baby mantis all over my yard. Every week I'd spot a few of them. Then I went a good month without a sighting. In September after neglecting mowing for a few weeks I discovered an adult wandering about in the long grass. I'm hoping there was more then one survivor and I'll get new baby mantis this year. The tiny babies are ridiculously cute and the adults will actually watch you. You can see their eyes moving to track you as you shift. My next critter to try to get back in the yard is grasshoppers. We used to have hundreds of them before the lawn died. Now there are just some crickets and beetles.

Daily Photo - Woo Hoo

Can you see what I'm so excited about? It's in the bottom right. I went out to take pics of some wild asters we have around the house and I wandered into my extremely overgrown garden. I picked some tomatoes that were almost ripe and noticed we had raspberries. Then I spotted a big piece of grass moving. At least 1 of my mantis survived, and it's huge. It also appears to be female and I'm just hoping there is a male hiding out there somewhere.

Arches National Park

We were in Arches from the 22nd to the 25th. due to the tiny biting gnats. We only went on the Devil's garden hike and avoided the campsite most of the time by hanging out in Moab. I did take a side trip to Canyonlands on the 24th while my cousin rented a bike. At Arches most of the rock tended towards reddish, but time of day altered it dramatically. Since it was so much warmer than Bryce I was up around dawn each morning.

Devil's Garden Trail. Landscape Arch Start of the non-primitive trail. Partition Arch. Water Holes. Navajo Arch. Raven. Sleepy lizard.

One part of the trail is across one of the fins. It's fairly wide, but I still got ridiculously nervous on the way back. There is a stiff wind from the right, enough to knock you over if you aren't paying attention.

Views from the road and Park Ave Trail.

Balanced Rock

Little gray praying mantis I spotted. Cracks. Ripples.

More Mantids

They are so cute.

To show scale, they're only a little bigger than mosquitoes.

Cleaning a foot.

The ones I released over the weekend are still really easy to find, they're all over the place. The one above has some kind of tiny fly in it's grasp.

Slightly Better Mantis Pic

Daily Photo - Hatching Day

Yes, I really am excited about a mantis egg case hatching out this afternoon. I already emptied the cup once and I am waiting for a few more to hatch out before wandering around the yard sprinkling them again.