Insect Nerd

I'm an insect nerd. My kids appreciate, and occassionally laugh at, my weird interest.

Pre-internet, I was a lone person, in my area, with an Ant fetish. I would have loved to have become an Entomologist. However, there were only 2 jobs in all of Australia. Those jobs had a long tenure, I think even today, the brilliant, Steven O Shattuck is still active in this arena.

Enter the Mantis

April, in Melbourne Australia, is an active period for insects. The mild temperature of Autumn sees many insects focus on breeding before the cold sets in.

The beautiful Praying Mantis is one of those insects. They will breed now as they will most likely die during the winter. Laying their eggs now so that their offspring will hatch when Spring arrives.

I thought I had found a different species about to mate the night before. They were on the fence line for hours.

Can you spot them?

That's right, far on the left near the bottom, and one on the right.
They held the same position, looking like sticks, until dusk. Then they went into the grass on the left hand side. But it got too late and I had to sleep.'

But then, the next day, I found a different mating pair already copulating.

In my ignorance, I had always thought that they would breed one time, then she would eat the male, and that would be that.

To my surprise, they copulated at least five times. It was hours and hours, a whole day in fact. They would couple, then spend time apart, then couple again.

It wasn't until the morning that there was only one mantis left.

Only part of the male remained. Just his face.

And now my daughter is a fan

I'd assumed everybody knows that Praying Mantis each their breeding partner.
I'd assumed everybody knew how they hunted.

It was a delight to see my daughter was also fascinated with this wonderful predator.

I put a large cricket in the enclosure. Yup, this morning my daughter captured it consuming the tasty morsel.

I'll post more as it happens. But to have a convert is a special thing.

Nature are the aliens that we spend billions on looking for. They are right here in our midst. Proof of organic computer programs running simple algorythms to keep balance in our world.

Thanks for reading.