Praying Mantis

While moving trailers at a campground today I found this guy hanging out on a flat tire of one of the trailers I was moving. Later we found four kittens living in another trailer. These were abandoned trailers that I will strip for the aluminum and so on over the next couple weeks. We still have 7 more to move... wonder what we'll find in/on those? One appears to have racoons living in it.

JS

Nice images! Did yo by any chance put it on GREEN , because I think they change colors with their surroundings ?

Actually Paul, I think he/she was under the trailer in the grass and then jumped up on the tire. He may have been too scared to change color :eek:
I saw several others but didn't get a chance to get any shots of them....and some big ole spiders too. I'll try to get some tomorrow though.
Glad you liked those shots. The ones with the white background were taken after I got him off the tire and put him on a popup trailer. I thought hey, perfect chance for a headon shot. These were taken in RAW on MKII N with 28-300mm lens then cropped at nearly 100%. I really like this lens!

JS

lucky! I spent much of this summer out in our garden trying to find one of these amazing bugs, but alas, nothing.

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Originally Posted by livin4lax09

lucky! I spent much of this summer out in our garden trying to find one of these amazing bugs, but alas, nothing.

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Quick, jump on a plane...fly to Mt Comfort airport, call me, I'll pick you up and take to about a hundred of them :D
Seriously, they are all over the place at this campground. I may take some more shots today. Tomorrow they should be all over as it's supposed to be in the mid 70's again. Is it really November? :eek:

JS

sweet! I need your cell-phone number! I should arrive about 3 AM.

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Originally Posted by livin4lax09

sweet! I need your cell-phone number! I should arrive about 3 AM.

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lol, thats a good time .... I'd email it if I knew were serious... but something tells me you have classes Friday :)

JS

These are fascinating but ferocious little creatures. I've handled plenty of them and am not afraid of them, but I would hate to be a smaller mantis. I once put two mantises together, thinking that one was male and the other female and they would kind of hit it off, but the next thing I knew the larger one was chomping on the head of the other. Didn't take too long for it to devour the smaller mantis. Great shots by the way.

Thanks Schrackman,

I actually prefer looking at the full size raw file though than these small crops... they are the neatest things to watch. I have a series of shots of this one turning it's head from side to side. Almost a video.
I didn't find any today, but I found some other creatures...oh, wait, those were horses :)

JS

Ray they were male and female......

The female ate the male ;)

yep, they were. I actually did some research on this a couple days ago because I was curious why that happens. While mating, the female bites the head off of the male praying mantis in order to obtain more nutrients to give birth and take care of the babies. Interesting fact for ya.

You are correct! But the part you left out was that the female usually does that during copulation ;) Some spiders are the same way too :)

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Originally Posted by prbowhay

You know this type of discussion always makes me frisky and, hungry! :D

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Glad she lives in SoCal! ;)

Hey watch it pal..... that's my internet mom your talking about :)

hhhhehehehehe.....OK Paul :)


JS

very nice.indeed very high res shots of markII N,but light is bit harsh.i mostly like too see overcast weather shooting or insects in garden surroudings.