Mantis update update

Hoppy gets his first taste of freedom. He likes it. He likes it a lot.

Since posting the splendid news about Brownie’s new wings, one of the other mantises, Gimpy, has shuffled off his mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. Gimpy, the reader will guess, had a bum leg for the last month or so of his life and frankly I’m surprised he made it as far as he did. But his death sort of pressed the issue of a mantis’s normal life span and what we, as responsible pet owners, should do now.

Brownie and Hoppy both seemed still sturdy and curious about life, so we have decided to roll the dice and hope that one is a male and the other a female, and have let them go forth into the garden, just like Adam and Eve (except in Santa Monica) to live out the rest of their lives in natural suburban splendor.

We had a little ceremony where we took the lids off their Critter-Keepers and let them roam around on the patio table. Sam and Kit called out words of encouragement like “Make a nice big egg sac, and bring back hundreds of baby mantises in the Spring!” and “I love you Hoppy! Have a good life!” I felt like singing “Born Free” but it probably would have made everyone cry. We wanted to take pictures but the camera battery was dead after a long wedding reception the day yesterday (the wedding was for some humans we know, not mantises).

After delivering our exhortations to Brownie and Hoppy on what we hope to be their wedding day, we carried them over into the bushes and put them well into the brush to keep them from getting eaten by birds. Brownie didn’t seem too keen to go, but then a moth fluttered by and, no joke, she charged off after it like a cheetah gunning for an antelope.

Take care, Brownie! Go get ’em, Hoppy!

Mantis update

We named this mantis Brownie because he suddenly turned brown one day. The change was so sudden that we all assumed he was about to roll over and croak. We were wrong! Brownie has not only stayed alive, he’s gotten bigger! He is now the largest of all the mantises we have and, what’s more, he’s suddenly grown wings! Show us your wings, Brownie!

Here you can not only see his wings, you can see him lick what I can only imagine are cricket-guts off his foot.  Cleanliness is next to insect-like behavior, Brownie!

There’s a slightly better shot of his wings. It’s hard to hold a mantis with one hand and take a picture with the other. Anyway, he’s gotten huge, as you can see, and he’s ready to take on flying insects! No place is safe from this winged menace!

Heck of a job, Brownie!