I feel like such a fool. I love praying mantises. There is something mystical about these creatures for me. I have posted about them…I write about them…I photograph them. For anyone living in a part of the country brutalized by heat and humidity this summer, it was impossible for gardening and plants. A warm Winter last year didn’t kill off the bugs that infest gardens and in the heat of the summer they just exploded in population. I would have two healthy plants and one would die. I have several gorgeous hibiscus trees that I bring inside for the Winter, but they need to be clean of critters, else everything inside the house would be infested with flying things.
It’s cold here. Frost cold. Yesterday I told my nursery guru, a wonderful woman named Marty, that it was so bad this summer I only saw two praying mantises and precious few hummingbirds and few butterflies. And so last evening I sprayed and brought my plants inside safe from the frost and this evening I took them outside again and thought, well, I’ll just spray once more.
And then I saw something lime green flutter at the base of the plant, on the soil, near the trunk of the plant. And it was a glorious mantis laying her eggs and I had sprayed her, I don’t know when, last night, tonight…twice…I don’t know.
Like a fool the only thing I could think of doing was to spray her with a fine mist of water. She unfolded her wings (you rarely get to see that, unless they are in defense mode), but lay there still, her front legs curled up around her eyes.
I cannot explain it, even to myself, this feeling I have about praying mantises. It goes way back to my childhood. My mother taught me about them and I have loved them ever since.
I tell myself that perhaps it was just the end of her life cycle, but I’m just trying to make myself feel better. Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone?
I couldn’t post a picture of her in the state I put her in/found her in.
Oh boy…
October 8, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Hugs They are beautiful creatures, it wasn’t with malice, accidents happen.
October 8, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Gord Birch and Terry McNeil 🙁 I know. Thank you both. It’s just awful to see her squirming there…
October 8, 2012 at 10:17 pm
hugs you checked, you were diligent, you weren’t attempting to cause harm.
October 8, 2012 at 10:18 pm
Giselle Minoli If she’s squirming, it might be kinder to put her out of her misery. Especially if you believe she will die.
October 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Or she is squirming while laying eggs which I believe is normal.
October 8, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Dee Solberg It is normal but she was not alive/alert “normal” but rather a mantis who had been sprayed. Could someone please invent some kind of mantis radar for me? I will pay….
October 8, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Thank you Dee Solberg !
October 8, 2012 at 10:25 pm
You’re all very sweet thank you. I took this picture of a group of children in the piazza in Siena a few years ago…they were all standing around looking at a dead pigeon. I knew exactly how they felt. I should post that picture because it’s so…well…real, you know?
October 8, 2012 at 10:25 pm
Giselle Minoli I looked it up. They die immediately after laying their eggs with the first frost. Here: http://www.gardeninsects.com/prayingMantis.asp
October 8, 2012 at 10:26 pm
The 1st line, 2nd paragraph is the one pertinent. I truly hope it helps, she was giving her final moments so you did nothing to hasten the inevitable
October 8, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Dee Solberg that’s what I was thinking but it coincided so cruelly with “The Famous Pre-Frost Spraying of October 2012” that it’s all so weird…
October 8, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Dee Solberg Aren’t they amazing? I love that phrase…the only insect that can look over their shoulder. I talk to them (okay, I’m a little nutty), but they’re just so…present.
October 8, 2012 at 10:33 pm
They are incredible. We used to watch them in our garden as kids, and foster and protect them as much as kids can.
October 8, 2012 at 10:39 pm
We lived on several farms in Missouri, always with a garden, always with mantis and big beautiful garden spiders.
October 8, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Gord Birch they will look right through you. Right through you. There is a lot of folk lore surrounding them (you know…one variety bites the head off of its mate during copulation…) but mostly they are friendly to gardeners. Dee Solberg I love “big” garden spiders. Love them. Scared of wasps because I was badly stung once…
October 8, 2012 at 10:46 pm
A lot of folklore around Black Widow Spiders, too Gord Birch. I was definitely afraid of those. Growing up in New Mexico people would say “They” crawl into your bed at night and bite you…or your tushy on the potty.” Children were terrified.
October 8, 2012 at 10:49 pm
One actually bit my dad’s leg when he was out cutting wood. It turned black and we thought he may lose his leg for a while. The bite eventually healed with lots of whatever meds they gave him.
October 8, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Oh, poor dears (the both of you)… let’s hope it was just her natural cycle.
October 8, 2012 at 11:09 pm
I’ve never actually seen one, up close and in person. Beautiful creatures, would love the chance to photograph one someday.
October 8, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Nick Markwell you are a mere “youth!” I remember communicating with someone on G+ many moons back…I recall they were riding a motorcyle and one landed on his face at a certain high speed and it felt like knife! I wish I could remember what post that was…I could find it. Yes…mantises crawl around and watch everything. They have “alien” eyes!
Dee Solberg in the Ohio River Valley they have Brown Recluses…equally (if not more) dangerous! Scare of them, too! With a “violin” on their backs…I have never seen one. I imagine a Mantis would beat out a Widow, but not even be able to find a Recluse…
October 8, 2012 at 11:29 pm
Shannon Adelson I’ll put the word out and see what I can do. 🙂 But I think they “choose” when to visit and, egofully, I’ve often thought “whom” to visit.
Hi Matthew Graybosch. Congratulations on your candlelit writing spree. I need to get over to your post! Yikes.
October 8, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Matthew Graybosch writing 2,500 words seems harder to me than swimming around the world at the moment…
October 9, 2012 at 1:16 am
What a sad story, Giselle Minoli . I completely understand why you feel so distraught! I love the praying mantis – one of my all time favorite creatures along with dragonflies, butterflies, ladybugs, hummingbirds, grasshoppers and any kind of lizard! I love ’em! They seem to have big personalities in their little bodies and I hate to hurt their spirits and beings in any way. I talk aloud to little creatures as well and I swear they seem to listen, lol!
Actually, please don’t laugh, but during a particularly high fever once as a little girl I had the most vivid dream that every creature one had encountered in life and appreciated in some way was your friend in heaven and every being you had hurt you needed to apologize to in that life. In that dream, every being in this space was actually a lava-lamp-like blue blob of the same size, not one creature had an advantage or a disadvantage, so you really knew quite quickly if you had been a force of kindness and love or had made one ant being enemy too many! It’s funny in the literal sense, but that dream has stayed with me for decades, really appreciating all creatures great and small. 🙂
October 9, 2012 at 4:54 am
I plussed Jennifer Tackman’s comment because it is more beautiful than anything I could imagine saying.
#Dreams
October 9, 2012 at 7:18 am
Giselle Minoli, pretty sure mother nature and circle of life understand you did not maliciously harm the Mantis.
October 9, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Good morning, dawn ahukanna. She lays there this morning, lifeless. My husband moved her to another pot. I know I didn’t mean her harm. But I have a thought about why it upset me so much. I love this community. There is such heart in it. Thank you for always being such a sweet part of my community here.
October 9, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Very sweet, Jack C Crawford – At times we all need to take pause and view the world through a child’s eyes.
October 9, 2012 at 8:52 pm
with luck your praying mantis laid her eggs and left you lots of little mantises to admire.
October 9, 2012 at 9:46 pm
You all are not going to believe what is going on with this mantis. I asked my husband to bring her inside (because I’m crazy), because she was still moving slightly. She’s warming up and has unfurled her wings. I just too a picture, but I have a Pilates class and have to leave. Her belly is still huge…so she didn’t lay her eggs…
October 9, 2012 at 9:49 pm
Maybe she will get them laid–oh and you’re NOT crazy.
October 9, 2012 at 10:33 pm
See! Will take more than a few sprays of “whatever” to keep her down.
October 11, 2012 at 11:05 am
Darling Jennifer Tackman I really had to wait a couple of days before I addressed your particular comment. It really got to me. I do have a difficult time describing why something such as this mantis’s interface with my world is so much under my skin. I think in the spiritual sense we are presented with opportunities every moment to “get it”…that is exactly how connected we are to all beings. And we pass them over because we’re going to a meeting, or have something to do, or are caught up in some prior mental engagement.
For me, having spent so many years in New York City, the fragility of people and interconnectedness of us all comes through on the human level more so than on the nature level, because NY is, well, a city and nature, with the exception of a few parks has been shoved out of the mix.
But in Virginia or Kentucky I am thrown up against all that makes us breathe and keep going and praying mantises reminded me of that. Different imagery speaks to different people. We are not the same. We feel things differently. And so I understand your dream and I would never laugh and you might have had it during a fever but…you remember it still. And that’s what’s important. Thank you for telling me (us)!
October 11, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I just wrote a response to your lovely comment above, Giselle, but I’m afraid when I hit the final period, the entire comment disappeared. I haven’t the time to capture all that I wrote a few moments ago as I am helping my brother at his work today, but I will revisit it later on. Thank you for your kind heart and lovely way with words. Have a wonderful day.
October 11, 2012 at 2:38 pm
I hate it when that happens Jennifer Tackman. It is one of the very few pesky cruelties up with which we must put, methinks… Not to worry…I know what is in your heart (I think!).
October 25, 2012 at 10:57 pm
All I have to say my wonderful Google+ friends is that something so weird has happened with “my Mantis” that I just don’t know what to think. She did, in fact, die. I couldn’t really post that because it was too upsetting and I’m convinced it was the spray. However…then, because I’m an utter lunatic I put her body in my orchid pot. I could not throw it out (where?) or bury her (where?). So I left her there, where she began to dry out. But she looked very peaceful and elegant. She has been there for over a week. This morning, I left for Virginia and I went to water my orchids before I left and…get this…her carcass is/was gone. I am completely mystified. Mystified.
Now, if any of you are thinking I have really gone round the bend…you are probably right. Well, I was honest from the start. I did tell everyone that I felt like a fool. I just didn’t tell you that I’ve lost my alleged mind.
October 25, 2012 at 11:05 pm
You are very nice to say that Gord Birch. You’ve made me feel ever so much better. I have a feeling Praying Mantises at this point would much rather keep me as an acquaintance. I will let you free associate the conversation between me and my husband, Brian Altman, a hour or so ago – he in Kentucky and I in Virginia – when I said, “Do you know what happened to the Mantis’s body?” He knows I’m nuts. But you are new in my world Gord Birch and you were not to have discovered the sordid truth so soon.
October 25, 2012 at 11:11 pm
I am not going to comment on that last comment Gord Birch. Just LOL!
October 25, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Giselle Minoli I had a thought. Do you have a cat or other animal in the house? Our cat and dog are hunters, also a mouse if it’s in a porch type place is possible though not highly probable.
October 25, 2012 at 11:29 pm
No, Dee Solberg we have no other “critters.” A mouse had crossed my mind, though…but that means we have a mouse in the house. What about a big spider? They grow them big down here. I have seen absolutely huge spiders, though, admittedly… not in the house. Thank God. It is all very strange.
October 25, 2012 at 11:32 pm
I think spiders depend largely on live prey. So I’m at a loss if there are no other critters.