After getting some pictures I tried to discover more about this preying mantis. While I am certainly no expert on insects a little hunting around online led me to believe that this was a Chinese Mantis. Apparently preying mantis is the common term for all mantids, of which there are several thousand species. The Chinese mantis was introduced to the US in 1895 for pest control and is now established in the northeast as the largest mantid we will find. The mantis has sharp spines on its forelegs that it uses to catch prey. The craziest thing that I learned was that there has even been a documentation of a one of these Chinese mantids catching a hummingbird, though probably rare occurrence.
Matt, this is so weird. We had one on our deck railing last week that looked just like your picture. We also took a picture. It's funny because there was one hanging on to our garage door three weeks before and that one was all green. I like to think the one we saw last week was the same mantis, but now it's a beautiful copper color on top with a bright green belly just like yours. And then someone from work saw one too. It's all a bit strange considering I personally have never seen one around here ever and now they're all coming out of the woodwork!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think its about to get even weirder. Yesterday when I got to work I was showing my co-worker the picture when she told me that she has a picture of a preying mantis on her phone too! Apparently in the last month or so she has been finding a lot of them as well. And we can't remember the last time we say an of them either... I wonder what might be going on?
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