Praying Mantis in Silver Artemisia
This was taken at a house I no longer live in; this house sat on a creek bed. A consequence of this was that the front of the house was usually covered in spiders (I suffer arachnophobia).
One year, I found a praying mantis in my backyard and transported it to my front porch where I had a variety of plants. I was delighted to find that the lovely mantis (which I promptly named Cassandra, as
mantis is Greek for "prophet") ate most of the spiders so I made sure that Cassie was carefully out of the way when I watered/weeded/deadheaded.
The next year, I found that I had four praying mantises living around my front porch and they happily munched on spiders too.
End result: the praying mantis is now one of my favorite insects.
4 Comments
Michael Wilson 25 Aug 2009
Nice shot! I love the insect and the plant in the pic. You do have a great eye for framing out a photograph!Ai Shan 25 Aug 2009
Very nice catch!Sharon Gonzalez 24 Aug 2009
OH WHAT A BEAUTY, ANGIE. WOW WHAT A GREAT STORY. I AM NOT INTO SPIDERS EITHER. I WAS TRAUMATIZED BY ONE WHEN I WAS A SMALL CHILD AND SINCE HAVE A FEAR, THOUGH, IT HAS LESSENED THROUGH THE YEARS SOME.jerry carlin 24 Aug 2009
Beautiful photo, thanks for the story. I love 'em in my garden too!