Mantis update
They grow up so fast.
Ceiling, Snacks and Booie are all doing splendidly — Ceiling and Snacks have each shed yet another skin and are over an inch long now. Booie seems to be the runt of the litter — he’s still on his second skin, is not yet green and tends to stay on the lower levels of his terrarium, instead of seeking the high ground where the hunting is better.
Suspecting that Booie might flourish if given his own territory, I moved Ceiling out of the yogurt container and put him into the large white terrarium. I then moved Booie into the yogurt container, leaving Snacks to dominate the green terrarium.
The fruit flies were disappearing at an alarming rate and I contemplated beginning the mantises on baby crickets. Snacks and Booie had taken to non-chalantly snagging fruit flies with a single paw, chewing on them like they were bubble-gum cigars, and I knew that was no kind of life for what Wikipedia calls “a notorious predator.” But were my boys (I have no idea what sex they are) big enough for baby crickets? This was the question on my mind as I entered the pet store on Wilshire.
Yes! The answer turned out to be. The moment I shook the baby crickets into their terrariums Snacksand Ceiling each nabbed one apiece, chowing down on them like they were ears of corn — wriggling, multi-legged ears of tasty, tasty corn.
(Booie I’m keeping on fruit flies for now — to be honest, I’m a little worried about him. One of the reasons I wanted to separate him from Snacks was in case Snacks got tired of fruit flies one day and started looking around for prey that was a little more, mm, challenging.)
More mantisy goodness after the cut.
At the top of the page is Ceiling, in his new terrarium, perched like a lion atop Pride Rock, silhouetted against the lush Santa Monica landscape he calls his home, or would if he lived in it. Next is Snacks, chowing down on his cricket in his preferred position, hanging upside down from his netting (picture is rotated to reduce vertigo). Finally, Ceiling again as he naturally appears, not silhouetted against anything, but standing out boldly against the Kleenex box his terrarium overlooks.
Heh. The one in the first picture almost looks like he’s holding binoculars…plotting the next stage in his World Domination Scheme™.
I thought it was the rocket launcher that just sent that nuke down field.
I’ve told them and told them not to play with their food.
We have small preying mantises (mantisi?) all over our tomato and her plants, on the porch. They’re still pretty tiny, with bodies just 1/2″ long or so. Cool!
They probably just hatched. They’ll sort things out between them over the next week or so.
Have you seen WALL-E yet?
I have. It has a deplorable lack of mantises.
wriggling, multi-legged ears of tasty, tasty corn.
🙂
PS. Are you a Neil Diamond fan? I just back from Glastonbury festival and saw him play. He was excellent, and had a fantastic back catalogue. I always though Bruce Springstein did Coming To America, but its in Neils playlist.
Well, let me put it this way: when my father felt the need to “connect with the younger generation,” he would listen to Neil Diamond. I’ve got nothing against him myself, but I would be speaking an untruth if I told you he was a fixture on my iPod.
The kids actually really dug him lol. I guess your Dad was only a generation away from connecting with the young ‘uns 🙂
I guess Neil has survived so long he’s become Music royally. Glastonbury has a tradition of having acts like that on. Leonard Cohen was also on this year, Shirley Bassey last year (who was act of the festival lol), Willie Nelson, and every aging rocker worth their salt. They always used to start Sunday morning with hymns from the Glastonbury Brass Band. Great place 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0MXIVrEnE
Well, not to knock Mr. Diamond or Ms. Bassey, but Leonard Cohen, although aged, is miles away from those two in quality.
You can tell their sex by counting the segments of their abdomen from underneath. 8 segments means they’re boys; 6 segments mean they’re girls. End segments can be tiny, so look carefully.