We went to the cemetary on Thansgiving, and we saw a praying mantis! Unfortunatly he (?) had a broken wing. I think that's the only reason I was able to snap som photos of him. He did scurry around the tree trunk pretty fast at first though! In this first photo you can see the arms!!
A side view of the praying mantis.
Top view...
Another side view.
You can see how his wing is messed up. Poor thing, it looks like it is stuck in that up position.
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I had no idea that they catch and eat. No snap of the neck, no coup d'gras to kill the prey. The mantis just starts eating their live prey as it struggles and struggles until finally it expires in agony.
I let the creepy thing go.
It also stares at you, ever notice that?
I wouldn't worry about that wing then, neither sex really needs them. If it is a female they are basically useless anyway, as its body is too long and its abdomen too heavy to fly anywhere at all, think of them like penguin wings. What probably happened is she just mated with a male and during or immediately following this he caught her wing and pulled it into that postition. The males usually place their front legs right at the bottom of the prothorax where the wings are connected.
If this all happened during mating you can say she whipped around to bite of th emales head and got hurt in the struggle. Or you can say its a he and he escaped from th eladys grasp, but not without getting hurt. :)
Great pictures either way!
I am going to feature it in my group "Hodge Podge Fun!"
Nice information
he put it on top of the microwave,
well lo and behold I woke up one morning and they were all over the kitchen wall
I had no idea what was in it, till jeff came in and said , oh that was what was in the thing i found~~~