My mom found this Mantis at work and brought her home some time back in the early summer. After Olena checked her out we released her into our garden. We are very proud to say that she decided to stay and every day we got to see her at least once. It was neat to watch her "move" from one part of the garden to the next over a course of a few weeks. She started at the flower box on the far end from the porch, we would see her there hanging out on the Dahlias every day around 1:00p. She stay there for a few weeks before she moved to the front of the porch and lived in some vine flowers we have there. She would come out late afternoon and bask in the sun on the cement porch. Then once fall hit and the mums bloomed she moved in there, and every day for hours she would sit right on top of the bush greeting us whenever we came or went :)
One afternoon I thought I better get a picture because this will be something neat for us to remember years from now; so I go get my camera, come out and start taking a few close ups when I notice something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look down and low and behold...there was another one! So I was able to get a few pictures of him too. Olena swears they were husband and wife. Not sure if that was the case or not, but I will say, we only seen Sir Mantis for 2 more days and then he never returned. You know what they say about those crazy Lady Mantises'.....guess we'll never know the truth.
I made this one bigger so you can see her a little better. Whenever we watched and observed her she would turn and look at us, and tilt her head back and forth. Olena thought this was hilarious and would crack up laughing every time.
Unfortunately we did not ever get to see her hunt, but we did watch several videos on YouTube and studied Mantis' all week for school. Did you know that some Mantis eat prey as big at birds and rodents? sorry but I have to say that was so gross to watch and a bit disturbing.
The joys of home schooling!
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