I confess I let the vegetable garden get away from me. Not hard to do when you take vacation in August. I went out in my pajamas the other day to grab some tomatoes, and three hours later I was still weeding and trying to restore order. Still in my pajamas.
At one point I pulled a bunch of weeds and found a green bean in my hand. At least that was my initial thought, until it pinched me and I went "ack!" and flung it down.
She seemed none the worse for that, happily.
The freakiest thing about praying mantises is the human-like articulation of their heads. They turn their heads and look at you, and you just know they're wishing they were a little bit bigger or you a little bit smaller.
I agree about the humanoid features of praying mantises (manti?). Have you ever seen those videos of manti eating hummingbirds? Quite impressive, creepy but impressive. I'm the first to accept that there's a food chain and the manti are just doing what Mother Nature tells them to do, but I find so many manti around my hummingbird feeder that I've taken to moving them farther away.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back from vacation! While you were enjoying time off we were dealing with earthquakes and hurricanes over here on the right coast. I'm looking forward to a little snow.
I haven't seen such a video, and I'm afraid to go looking for it! I would feel very sad to lose a hummingbird to a mantis, so I don't blame you for taking evasive action.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to assume you survived the earthquake OK!