We had a close encounter of the natural kind a couple of weeks ago:
This lovely praying mantis was on top of our grill outside our studio, which gave us all a great view of it. Every time we brought the camera in close, it attacked as if it were trying to eat it!
After gawking at it for a while, we brought it over to a flowering sedum plant, where it proceeded to snag a bee from mid-air about 10 seconds later. And then another. And then another, and so on. That thing was hungry!
We watched it every day in the sedum plant for about a week. Apparently, this turned out to be an excellent hunting ground; then it dissappeared.
Remember the Biggest Spider Ever??
Here’s what she looked like after creating the biggest egg sac ever!
You can see that her body mass was greatly reduced by this effort. After this, she made another web nearby, but I don’t think it saw too much action before she died, right there in the web. It’s sad, just seeing her there now, falling apart.
Truly, it reminds me of Charlotte’s Web, and I am hoping to see Joy, Nellie and Aranea next year!
You folks have a great yard for critter-watching.
Eric
She died? *sniff*
I have a couple of praying mantises (mantisee? mantisie?) as well. They’re COOL. But yours looks like it has a real personality.
HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD, that is a scary spider. Can you tell my phobia?
That was a precious story…I looked at your previous post of how BIG that mama spider was. Then to see her all shriveled with that giant egg sac was sad 🙁 That would make a touching book (though I know Charlotte’s Web has already been written! Maybe with lots of pictures…you have a gorgeous scene behind her in both photos.) Thanks for letting me share in your garden 🙂