Memoirs of a Light-Trapper: expeditions and experiments in light-trapping pt. 1

Hey ya'll

Chasing after butterflies and other flying insects with a net can be great fun during the day, but catching nocturnal insects is a totally different ball game altogether. It is, after all, not very practical for one to go traipsing about in the forests in pitch darkness while waving a net blindly around in hopes of accidentally catching something that flies by! As such many entomologists and lepidopterists have developed, over the years, a variety of techniques and methods that are quite reliable at attracting insects for the purposes of study or collection. The most efficient of all these, is probably light trapping. Light trapping is basically a method of attracting insects that involves the use of a light source (usually a mercury vapor bulb, or some other source that emits UV light). The light is often dispersed through the use of a white cloth (that can greatly increase the light's surface area) and functions as a veritable beacon that attracts moths, beetles, and any large number of flying insects to its surface. Think of a bug zapper, but on a larger scale. And minus the deadly electricity. Insects attached to the white cloth may then be studied in closer detail, photographed, or collected depending on its purpose.

Recently, I've had the opportunity of conducting one such expedition which took place in the form of a mini experiment. Two light traps were set with different bulbs, one emitting a specturm of UVA (orange/warm light), the other of UVB (white light). Through the course of the night we discovered that different insects were attracted to different spectrum of light. While the UVA bulb seemed to attract more insects on the initial stage, many of them eventually shifted their focus over to the UVB bulb where they proceeded to swarm and seethe in a writhing mass of antennae, legs, and wings. The diversity of insects which arrived was also, to say the least, quite astounding and we had (in addition to moths of just about every shape, size, and color) some very attractive looking beetles and cicadas. Below are some of the amazing insects that were attracted to our light traps that night.

These are some of the moths that were attracted to our light traps. Among all the insects that eventually came to the traps and stayed, I'd have to say that the moths were the most numerous. Most of them were small and brilliantly patterned, although we would eventually come across several sphingiids and saturniids as well. Geometriids were the most common and most of these came in various shades of yellow or green, many similarly patterned with geometrical map-like markings on both wings. 

We eventually nicknamed this moth "Hellboy" until a more concise definition
can be offered.

Aside from moths, the traps also attracted more than their fair share of cicadas! The large insects are clumsy fliers and, after slamming unceremoniously into the light bulbs and walls repeatedly, they would often crash onto the ground where they remained, seemingly in a state of stupor. They were so stunned by this I could even pick them up and place them side by side on my outstretched palm with little or no effect. 

Cicadas came in all shapes and sizes that night! We counted no less than 6 different species that were attracted to the traps. 

There were also an astounding diversity of beetles at our traps. Of all the insects, these were perhaps the worst! Beetles are clumsy fliers at best and when in a state of fright, have sharp claws that they can use to devastating effect. I had many bad experiences with beetles that fell down my color and proceeded to dig their claws into any portion of my skin they happened to come into contact with that the time! I shall take note to wear tighter fitting clothes when I try this again in the future! Most of the beetles weren't particularly remarkable, but we did find several of the long horn (Cerambycidae) and rhinoceros (Dynastidae) variety. Some of these, I ended up keeping, for virtue of their unique appearances! Second note to self: long horn beetles have fearsome jaws and can deliver quite a bite!!! 

The largest cerambycidae that was attracted to our traps that night. It measured several inches from head to tip of abdomen and eventually managed to bite hard enough to crack the flimsy plastic lid of the container.

Of all the other insects that were attracted, most were aletes, the winged generation of various ants and termite species whose identification simply goes beyond my capabilities. There was also a stick insect that somehow found its way there, and a rather opportunistic praying mantis. There really are a lot more pictures to go through, and I will upload them in the second part of this blog post when our photographer, Miss Joanne Tong, has sorted them out from her camera. Until then, Happy Monday.

Cheers, 

Cyren.

Not so little anymore

Hey ya'll 

What a week! And what a weekend too!!! I ended the teaching week yesterday by heading off for a game of badminton with some of my colleagues and the PhD students. I must say, having not exercised properly in quite awhile, two hours of non-stop serves and smashes have left my body "thanking me" (despite it feeling a LOT healthier) with muscle aches and sores!!! I swear, I can barely climb the three flights of stairs it takes to get to my room. More than once I was tempted to crawl up instead, but imagine how awkward it would be if someone caught me in such a compromising position!!! In other news, our mantis Dian-Dian (which means Little One in Chinese) molted today, and while this is most certainly a cause for celebration, it came to us as a bit of a shock I'm afraid as I was not expecting it to happen so soon and had hope to power feed her for at least a few more weeks in hopes that she will grow to an even larger size!!! I wonder if the injury she sustained from her previous molt has anything to do with this. Naturally, a crippled mantis would have next to no hope of surviving in the wild, and I'm curious to know if it is some sort of a evolutionary mechanism that "rushes" them into their next molt when this happens... you know, to increase the probability of survival or something like that. Hmmm. Something to research in to, no doubt. In the meantime, do take a look at these photographs of her. 

Not as large as some of my other mantises, perhaps... but isn't she a beauty nonetheless?

Now, the arduous task of finding her a suitor. 

Cheers,
Cyren

Mothering Mantises

Hey ya'll 

I am afraid that I have neglected to report a rather unfortunate turn of events and some pretty sad news, but with the positive hype that was surrounding the celebrations of my birthday finally coming to an end, I do not see any reason to withhold this any further. Dian-Dian, our female praying mantis (Hierodula membranacea) had a fall whilst molting and while this may not sound like a very big deal (insects are generally more than well equipped to deal with falls), such an accident during the molting process generally ends in death. An insect, you see, is covered by a tough, water-proof like material called chitin which composes the insect's exoskeleton.

Throughout its brief life, it is the exoskeleton that gives many insects their unique appearance and protects them from the elements and predators. Generally speaking, this exoskeleton is really pretty tough and durable but there are moments during the insect's life when it needs to be shed in order to make way for a new and stronger one that had been growing underneath. When the insect sheds its old exoskeleton, the new layer underneath is still quite soft and takes quite some time to harden. This is to enable it to expand so that the insect can, too, increase with size. Now an insect with a soft exoskeleton is really nothing more than a collection of gooey fluids trapped inside a very thin bag of membranes and tissues so imagine, if you may, what might happen if you were to drop such an object from a great height upon a hard and unrelenting surface! The results are best left to your imagination but should the insect even survive the impact of the initial fall, it is often so deformed as a result that it finds itself quite crippled when the exoskeleton eventually hardens up.

Dian Dian our Giant Asian Mantis (Hierodula membranacea) after her little accident. Note the awkward posture of her body, dysfunctional leg on the left side, and strangely positioned claws which cause them to overlap thus making it difficult for her to catch her own food. 

Fortunately for Dian-Dian, the fall took place only within a short distance and it just so happened that I was there to notice it and rescue her. Unfortunately, though she did not suffer any fatal injuries, the accident had left her quite deformed with one dysfunctional leg and a rather awkward and twisted posture that positioned her claws in such a way that made it pretty much impossible for her to capture prey on her own. Needless to say I was quite saddened and disappointed by this as I had put in much effort into raising her and was hoping to breed her with our earlier mantis (currently residing in Sabah). My spirits were lifted, however, when she recently began accepting hand-fed food and demonstrated that she could easily feed herself if the worms were offered within the grasp of her claws. I'm hoping as such that these deformities can be corrected with the following molt (insects can regrow lost limbs with each molt so why not a posture problem?) and I'm feeding her with worms that have been themselves fed with nutritious vegetables and supplementing this with calcium powder made from ground cuttlefish bones (the powder is generally for my amphibians).

Feeder Worms: Today on the menu Carrots!!!

Cocaine for bugs!!! NAH! I'm JUST KIDDING!!! It's ground cuttlefish bones that I use as a calcium supplement for my newts.  

Anyways I think things are definitely looking up for now so please stay tuned for updates and wish me all the best in this undertaking!!!

Cheers,
Cyren

Masticating Mantises

Hey ya'll 

While hand feeding our mantises can get rather messy at times, some of the benefits of doing it is that the insects get conditioned to our presence as time goes by. Before long, it is possible that they will be eating right out of our hands. Literally! Unlike more ephemeral insects like butterflies or moths, creepy crawlies like mantises (specifically the giant asian mantis hierodula sp.) are rather long lived (some of mine have survived for over a year!) and therefore (I think) begin to develop individual specific characteristics/behavioral traits over time. For instance, mantises which have been raised through hand-feeding grow to be more picky about their foods. They learn over time to reject certain kinds of foods or the same foods that have not been prepared in the same way. 

Our current female for instance used to eat worms that were simply cut open for her. As time went by however, I started noticing that many of the worms intestinal tracts were filled with copious amounts of what I assume is worm poo. As such, I began de-gutting them before feeding them to her (it's really quite easy, after snipping off the worm head, I use a pair of clippers to hold onto the exposed end of worm intestinal tract sticking out and give it a good pull. It usually comes out in one piece. Usually). Over time, Dian Dian began to learn the difference between these de-gutted worms and the non-gutted ones. If I were to offer her two worms at the same time, one gutted and one not, she would experimentally lick at the exposed ends of both worms. The result was that 99% of the time she would go for the one that had been gutted. Indeed the result seemed to be that she began refusing un-gutted worms altogether. Should she be eating one and discover, upon chewing into the center that the worm had not been gutted, she would flail her claws wildly and flick the offending food object as far away from her as possible and (as I imagine it) stare at me reproachfully for another one. Feeding her, as such, has become quite an occasion for me and although I would not go so far as to attribute an insect with human emotion, I suppose I can say with some certainty that they do seem to possess personal characteristics and behavioral traits. 

This is a video of our daily morning feeding sessions. As you can see from the start of the video, she is quite capable of eating two of those worms at a time, although the first worm should be about almost finished before I bring the second one over. Her appetite varies on a day to day basis but she typically eats anywhere between two or three of these and they must be cut, de-gutted and brought to her mouth with a pair of tweezers before she will consent to feeding upon it. She almost never catches her own food anymore these days. 

Cheers,
Cyren

Mantises and their Feeding Habits

Hey ya'll 

check out the latest addition to our creepy-crawly family!!! 

This is Dian-Dian, (點點) which means small in Chinese because she is probably one of the smallest mantids of her species that I have ever raised! However though small in stature she may be, Dian-Dian is perhaps one of the most exuberant and spunky mantises I've ever had the pleasure of raising. Though this might border a little too closely along the lines of anthropomorphism, it never fails to astound me the amount of "personality" praying mantises seem to have. Consequently you can imagine that while most mantises (especially the more robust females) would eat just about anything and everything that moves  (my very first, Artemis, would even eat large dead dragonflies if I tied them on a string and waved them in front of her) there are others who are slightly more picky than the rest. One of our mantises, Diana, for instance would only eat crickets and nothing else! Not a fat moth, offered enticingly, or even a meal worm with its side split open to reveal its juicy innards could tempt her. Fortunately this only occurs in very rare cases and many will eat a wide variety of insects and invertebrates if you can get them to try it first.

Not surprisingly, between an insect it is familiar with and one that is newly introduced, a praying mantis will almost always go for the familiar one. This is perhaps some evolutionary trait which has enabled the mantis to survive in the wild by avoiding distasteful, or otherwise poisonous or dangerous foe. This can be quite frustrating in captivity, however, because while a caretaker is highly unlikely to feed any of the former to a mantis, the mantises own preoccupation with food that is familiar with can make it difficult to offer it a more varied diet. Similarly, this can become something of a necessity when a specific feeder insect is out of stock or unavailable for purchase at the local pet-store. One of my personal favorite of insects to feed my carnivorous charges:

SUPER WORMS!!!

Super worms (or meal worms as they are sometimes called) are really the larval form of a species of beetle, and while they may not always be readily available at many pet stores near me, I like using them as feeder insects because unlike crickets (which are more commonly sold) they do not smell as bad and they seem to be able to last longer. That aside they are also juicier and simply oozing with what I am told is fatty goodness (I wouldn't know as I've never tasted one before). Problem is, though many of my mantises are brave enough to tackle prey much larger than themselves, even the most rambunctious ones seem to shy away from these meal worms which can give a startling jolt-wriggle when they are picked up. As such, a little coaxing is sometimes necessary. I do this by "force-feeding", and for those of you out there who might be a little alarmed, it is really not as horrid as it sounds... not for the mantis anyway.

I start by chopping off the head of the meal-worm. Again, this need not be as messy as it sounds and all you really need to do is... well, snip off the head end of the worm with a pair of scissors. Now, if for whatever reason you find this disturbing I suggest you stop reading now although, I will remind you that the worm was about to be macerated alive by the insect equivalent of the Alien from ALIENS so perhaps chopping off its head so that it need not "see" this process happening might be a blessing after all. Conversely if that still bothers you, you can always kill the worm first by putting it in the refrigerator for five minutes. Anyway when I am done with that,  grip the other end of the worm firmly with a pair of tweezers, then squeeze really hard until... well bits of it come out of the "newly-made" entrance on the top. Carefully, and with some deftness about you, shove this end straight for the mantises face.

Now, this has to be done rather quickly and skillfully because you can be sure than if you're doing this for the first time that the mantis is going to object. What Dian-Dian does (I'm still in the process of "training" her) is wave her arms about furiously in a karate chopping action that sends bits of worm guts flying everywhere which can get quite messy so you want to avoid this if possible. If you find that you can't seem to get the oozing end of the worm into her mouth, what you might do alternatively is wipe the stuff on her front claws. I think they must feel the same way I do about the worm guts because they will waste no time to "lick" it up (their version of cleaning) and when they do, I often find that they no longer object to it so much were you to place the worm closer to their mouth. A few nibbles later and they might even extend a claw to "take" the worm from your tweezers. 

Indeed with all this talk about insects and their preference food, one cannot help but entertain the idea of the possibility of these amazing animals having individual characteristics. Indeed Sir David Attenborough has himself remarked on the seemingly individual characteristics of bolas spiders his cameraman observed while filming on the set of Life in the Undergrowth. Personally I have yet to come to a conclusion myself, but perhaps, if I manage to obtain more mantises and/or spiders for my menagerie, I can attempt to document some observations on my own. 

Cheers,
Cyren

Ray Says: When saying goodbye

Recently or just now if you want to be specific, I received the most distressing news of the new year. My pet Diana died. I barely had it for a year and it left me and Cyren just like that without even a word, not that it could speak. To matter worse, I didn't even get to say goodbye. It died in Cy's house while I'm all the way at East Malaysia. All I have are the pictures below to remember him by.

Diana, the name of my mantis, was found together by me and Cy and with respect to the Roman Gods, we decided to name him Diana (we expected it to be a girl initially). Cy knows how to tell the gender. I just trust him. Anyway, these little critters usually live up max a year but mine died less than that (roughly 5 months or so). The reason behind this might revolve around the food I fed him and the climate I kept him in. It seemed like just yesterday it crawled up my Lego empire. Life's too short.

Here's two photos of my first and beloved mantis:

Resting on a Lego tree, thinking that it's a real one

Stalking a geisha with a big belly

I'm gonna miss how it made a home out of my Lego shelter. Good thing I caught another one a few weeks back. (Her) name is Athena =D hopefully it is a girl. lolx

PIns and Needles 22 ~ Specimens Update and my Dead Queen

Hey ya'll

half-year-thingiesary just went by!!! It was... quite normal, hahaha. The sad part was we were so excited to catch a movie but upon heading to the cinema discovered that all the good movies we had already watched. Sigh... how boring! Oh well, on to more buggish things. I continued somewhat with the re-organization of my specimens today. Unearthed my little infamous lycaenid box. These were some of the first butterflies I started collecting and I havent' even managed to identify them all. Any help here would be hot.

The lycaenid box. Okay... so I know some of them aren't actually lycaenidae but I guess I stored them in there out of convenience and to save some space. 

Besides those two, I've had another two in to spread today. The first is another magnificent specimen of the Laos Brown Butterfly which, I am told is also called a Tropical Swallowtail Moth (Lyssa zampa) of the family uranidae.

Lyssa zampa. Like the first, it's got one of the tails in it's hindwings torn off... a feature most common with these uranid moths (i suppose it must have something to do with their extremely fragile wings!)

And the next is this one particular insect of which I have grown extremely fond of... my darling Artemis. She expired today, sometime when I was not at home and it was a pity that she did for by the time I had gotten back, those nasty little ants had gotten to her first... they ruined portions of her lower wings and her abdomen. She will be missed lots.

She made good practice, though, as this was my first time spreading a praying mantis, and I do hope at least one of her multiple egg-cases hatch soon!!! Babies, it's time to live up to your mother's legacy in keeping my garden pest-free!!!

STRIKE!!!

Bought more crickets for Artemis to feed on. Basically the plan is to fatten her up significantly before my trip so that while I'm there, all I need to do is slip in 3 or 4 crickets and she will definitely last my elongated period of absence. Interesting thing though, now that she's so big, she actually stalks her prey, watching from above and then hanging down so that when an unsuspecting little cricket strays within her reach... ZAAASZZZ!!!!

Well, you get the picture.

It's really quite an interesting and fascinating thing to watch actually, in a sick sort of sadistic way I suppose... but then again you couldn't possibly say that something similar would not be happening in nature because it is, I suppose her place to behave in such a manner at the top of the food chain. Anyway so there you have it. Am too excited that Ray is going to be sleeping over... again... =D fourth week in a row !!!

Fit for a Queen

Hey guys!!!

So since Artemis' final moult she's not only grown wings, but a lot bigger as well!!! I decided the old tank wasn't just gonna cut it for my big-little girl so it was time to dig in the store-room for larger containers. Fortunately for her (and me) I still had one large empty tank lying around - from my newt keeping days - so all I had to do was empty out the gravel from the container and give it a good washing with soap and warm water which sorta annoyed the familia considering I chose to do all of this at 3am in the morning and the pipes to get a little bit noisy when we use them at that time of the day... anyway the effort (and annoyance) was worth it as you see because Artemis now has a huge and lovely new home to live in.

Artemis' new home

UNDERBELLY!!!!

with all you can eat bug-fets everyday

Choice hanging locations

All in all truly a living space fit for a queen! And with this much room I get to see her climb around and even test her wings occasionally when she gets active at night! Such an amazing creature to observe. As always I do love watching her hunt for her food. I'm not sure about the tint of blue though... and it seems what once enhanced the colour of the underwater denizens of this tank doesn't seem to be doing much justice to Artemis'  own brilliant green and pink hue but oh well, I don't think it bothers her terribly. On a separate note I will be leaving to Saigon in a couple of weeks and, besides missing Ray dearly, I've come up with the huge dilemma of whose going to feed  and care for my pets. Naturally the dogs, birds and turtles can be cared for by other family members but I do have some which require quite special needs. My mantids, and other invertebrates for example. I wonder if I throw in a cricket or two will it sustain Artemis for as long as I'm gone?

The only thing louder than the groan I let out when I saw your face was the inescapable sound of your fail.

Skinned

Yeap!!! It's my beautiful Artemis, all gone through her final molt and now with wings!!! Real nifty eh?

Can you say Ootheca?

OOTHECA!

Yes, it's a mouthful and it is actually the proper name for the egg-cases of many insects including (ugh) cockroaches and of course, one of my favourites, the praying mantis! The praying mantis is a very strange animal in that, despite its viscious countenance and behaviour (the female mantis is notoriously infamous for biting the head off her husband while he is still mating with her) it is, for the better part a very capable and efficient insect mother.

Ninja!!!

Rawwwr!!!! OMNOM

This is Ninja!!! If you recall, Ninja is my pet praying mantis that went with me on a wild excursion on an aeroplane to Penang Island (truly Ninja must be the first praying mantis ever to ride an aeroplane!). Well it seems that I was too quick in assuming Ninja's sex for in fact, the praying mantis I've always assumed to be a "he" turned out to be a "she", and what a surprise it turned out to be too because Ninja left me with a beautiful ootheca!

OOTHECA

Mantis oothecas are actually secreted from the abdommen on the female mantis as she lays her eggs as a foamy substance the appearance and consistency of soap suds. They do harden though, eventually to form a honey-comb like strucutre that not only keeps the mantis eggs dry and intact, but also protected from ants and other predators which might try to eat them! Moving on though, I'm quite psyched up about starting this volunteer work thing. I'm not really at liberty to divulge much information but all I can say is this, that it involves teaching arts and drama to very little children and I do hope that, in doing so I can show these children that they are all special, unique and that they matter. So to speak let them feel like the spotlight is shining on them for a change and hopefully, that self-esteem and confidence will translate to their activities later on in life and with their future endeavours :-)

Seems a little bit much for a drama teacher but.... wish me luck!!!

This is how Ninjas Do It

Hey guys!

I decided to name my little mantis nymph Ninja!!! If you see the way he hops from place to place and the stealthiness with which he hunts his prey you will know what I mean! Meanwhile Ninja just went through his second molt! Second molt already and he's starting to look a lot bigger than he was! COOL! Pretty soon I'll have a full grown mantis in no time!

Mantis molt!

Meanwhile, what an appetite!!! Check out the following video! It's really quite amusing watching them hunt although, one might feel sorry for the small insects currently being devoured! Ah well, circle of life and all that. Ps. if you can, click the "rectangle" button on the bottom right of the video to watch it full screen. I used a HD camera so you can really get in on all the details!

Night at the Tower Regency @ Ipoh

Hey guys!!!

If you've been following my tweets you will probably know that we were stuck, literally, in Ipoh (North of Malaysia) last night! The traffic was simply horrendous, so horrendous that driving was quite simply out of the question! Originally we were hoping to leave by four but it turned out we ended up booking ourselves a stay at the Tower Regency Hotel which, by the way is a pretty nice hotel as far as hotel goes but a word of caution: The toilets smell of poop! And no, I don't mean AFTER we've used it, I mean like even BEFORE!!! The first thing you get when you open the door, is a waft of stale, damp air with distinct overtones of FECAL MATTER! My theory is that the toilets all share a central ventilation system resulting in a POOP smell everytime someone uses the bathroom in one of the other units on the same floor. (The smell wasn't so bad when I used the bathroom without the lights on, but when the lights came on and the ventillation fan started, OOPS! There's that smell again!) So it wasn't just poop smell I was getting in the toilet, it was the smell of someone else doing their business. Charming. That, or a sewage thank was leaking somewhere in which case, poop water in the walls? I don't know which appeals to me more. Anyway, I like to look at the glass half-full so I suppose it was still the better alternative to being stuck for 8 hours or more in a snail-paced jam! Meanwhile, what a view huh?

You know in all my life I don't think I've actually seen a purple sunrise before

The wierd tihng about this hotel, is that they have a 14th floor! I don't know much about in Western countries but in Asian countries, its usually a taboo to have a 14th floor and the hotels usually go from 13 - 13a/b and then 15. Naturally  I went snooping around room 1408! It was there! And there were voices inside! Of course they could have simply been guest voices but like hell I was going to take that chance. I snapped a picture of the door for souvenier and hightailed it out of there as fast as my legs could carry me! Fortunately enough, the traffic had started to let up by the time we finished our breakfast the next day. Smooth drive all the way to Kuala Lumpur and thank goodness too because I was getting very cramped in the rear-region and to be frank, missing sorely my bed and my pillow! Needless to say I was going home to a pair of dogs, four birds, two fishes and my darling praying mantis who were simply thrilled to see me. Oh and speaking about dogs, you simply have GOT to take a look at my cousin brother's Fifi.


Don't let her looks fool you! This sweet little "puppy" has been a mother several times over already!

And boy am I gonna miss them all again when I go to Penang for four days this coming Sunday! I wonder, if Air Asia will object to me bringing my mantis along for the ride?

Yes baby, I'll misss youuuu tooo!



Praying Mantis: The Insect Yakuza

HEYYY GUYS!!!!

I LOVE PRAYING MANTISES! They're absolutely one of the most interesting bugs to raise and breed! Not only do tame easily and will more than willingly sit on one's shoulder for hours on end, they're personalities are also immensely interesting to observe! Ever talk on the phone with someone only to have one of your mantises fix his steely gaze on you and cock his head as though he were eavesdropping? well, I have and it is as unsettling as it is endearing! Unfortunately, adult mantises dont' live very long and some of the longest (and most taxing) times when raising mantids is when they are but wee nymphs, often shorter than an inch in length and still very active and jittery!

Ootheca!

Ootheca! No, it's not some strange foreign language, but rather what this thing is. An Ootheca is the egg case of a praying mantis (and many other insects for that matter) which is carried around by the female for a period of time before being deposited in someplace safe where her young may emerge and have the highest chance of survival! With praying mantises, Ootheca are normally stuck on walls, high out of reach of predators, or on plant stems because while an adult praying mantis is practically the Yakuza of Insect world, they are still pretty vulnerable when they are little. As a result, many praying mantis nymphs resort to mimicry (pretending to be sticks and plant matter) or simply disguise themselves as other insects (in this case, ants) to do this. They eventually get out of their baby clothes, though, normally after the second molt.

This is Junior after his second molt. Although you can't see it from this angle, he's still got some black markings on his abdommen (a remnant from his days of masquerading as an ant)

Praying mantises are voracious predators and they will often strike (and eat!) anything that is smaller than them that moves within striking range! What more, praying mantises need to hunt, they literally live for it! Try offering a praying mantis a dead insect. More likely than not it will simply turn its head at you in scorn. In fact, praying mantises are so predatory they will even eat their own siblings, if they do not venture away from the Ootheca fast enough after hatching and I don't even have to tell you the age old anecdote of the praying mantis female devouring her mate. Sometimes WHILE he is still mating with her, in an act known as "sexual cannibalism"

Female Oriental mantis devours her mate while he is mating with her.

However, while they are extremely aggressive towards other insect. The praying mantis make very good pets to humans! Indeed many people have asked me this question "Do they bite?  Do they pinch? Are they poisonous?" and I can assure you that the answer to all three is one big "NO!" Praying Mantis rarely, if ever, attack animals that are bigger than them and in fact, when raised as nymphs, they grow more accustomed to human contact than any other insect I know off. Some owners have even reported being able to feed them by spearing pieces of banana on tootphics and placing it in front of the mantises face.

One of my pet mantises ( a male ) resting on the top of my hand.

Mantis nymph in jar

In conclusion, I guess Mantises are just really amazing creatures! The very nature of their stance, poised delicately on point with forelegs raised evokes the image of prayer and their swiftness and agility even gave rise to a martial art form! But still, perhaps one of the things I admire most in praying mantises, are their immense beauty. But don't take my word for it. Check these out.

Spiny flower mantis

Devil's Flower Mantis

Orchid flower mantis. Can you spot it???

 Aren't they simply gorgeous? These mantises are so named "flower-mantises" because of the way they fold their wings and legs to resemble flowers. All the easier to snare an attracted bee! In the meantime, it's almost impossible to think of the mantises as being closely related to the more disgusting, and loathed cockroach (which they are!)