PRAYING MANTIS

Thank heavens for blip assistants! Knowing we’re always looking for blip opportunities, my son-in-law captured this praying mantis while he was out and about. We let her go in the garden so she was in her natural habitat, then snapped many, many pictures. She was amazingly accommodating and didn’t mind the camera clicking away while she moved from petal to petal. In fact, I’d guess she was quite happy because she munched a bit on these pink flowers and was still on this same plant when we took the dogs out for a walk later in the evening.

I say ‘she’ because the dot surrounded by black on the inner foreleg denotes a female praying mantis. (This, along with her full length, shows more clearly on Flickr.) I chose the above image for Blip because of the incredible detail of her neck and thorax; however, the other Flickr shot shows how much she resembles a leaf. Many thanks to my son-in-law for providing today’s blip for me!