from Chris
We had a visitor at the Post Office on Tuesday afternoon….
These images make this praying mantis look bigger than it was. The mantis was shorter than the handle of a spoon and, along its thorax–its midsection–it was thinner than a pencil. Of course, I still can’t help but think of the 1957 “giant bug” film The Deadly Mantis (I loved those old monster movies!).
We usually think of mantises as being green, but some varieties make their primary habitat on tree trunks and even the ground, and those species tend to have camouflage that lets them better blend in there—so grays and, in this case, browns. I found this mantis on the front door of the Post Office, which is made of wood. There, it patiently waited the afternoon away, hoping for an unsuspecting lunch to come flying past or crawling by. Mantises are generally ambush predators, so they’re used to long hours of still, silent waiting.
