It's been an interesting few days in our sun room. Happily it has been getting cool enough that we've been able to go out there in the mornings and evenings. Last night I noticed a praying mantis on the sun room door.This morning it had been joined by another praying mantis... I took a closer look and indeed they were doing what bugs do on the Nature Channel. I dimly remembered learning something quite horrible in high school biology class about praying mantises and I was scared.
I hoped against hope that my memory was wrong. But I couldn't be sure if it was or it wasn't. The uncertainty of it all drew me (against my better judgment!) to check back on the mantises throughout the day.
At first they were continuing to do what they had been doing. Then the moment came when all my fears were realized. I don't think I want to fully explain what happened, but it involved cannibalism... go ask your biology teacher for details. After my dreaded suspicion was confirmed I no longer checked back, but I did hum taps for the male praying mantis.
The wikipedia entry on praying mantids was quite interesting. Apparently one can keep them as pets and feed them crickets. (Mattox, are you reading this?) I started thinking that might be a fun sort of science project to do with Maria when she gets older - keep a praying mantis in a little terrarium and feed it crickets. There certainly is no shortage of crickets here among the corn and soybean fields! But now I'm wondering if this feeding of crickets would be too gross and would scar Maria for life. I figure as her mother I'm totally doomed... no matter what I do I'll scar her for life in somehow, but I'd like to keep the damage as minimal as possible!
PS. This picture was taken before anything too terrible happened. The odd part is that the female was missing one arm, but that didn't stop her from doing what she did. Such aggressive little critters!
