- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No doubt you've seen a praying mantis egg case, or ootheca, on a tree, shrub, fence or post.
But have you ever seen one attached to a clothespin on an outdoor clothes line?
So here we were Thursday afternoon, hanging freshly laundered dog blankets on the clothes line.
We grabbed one clothespin after another, carefully fastening Fido's favorite blankets to the line to dry in the 80-degree temperature.
One more reach....Whoa! What's that?
Can't use that one. There's a ooth on it.
A praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, had apparently pinned her hopes to a clothespin. Or maybe that was her PIN number?
"Too funny," commented Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. "What a weird place to put your ooth."
Our little gravid gal must have climbed the eight-foot-high clothes pole last fall; walked the line (ala Johnny Cash?); and discovered the "perfect place" to deposit her ooth--right above a patch of Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifola) buzzing with bees and fluttering with butterflies.
"I've seen egg cases on outdoor furniture, predator guards on duck boxes, on buildings between bricks, trees, and even garden implements like pots, watering cans, and tools," said praying mantis expert Andrew Pfeifer, who now studies horticulture/landscape design at North Carolina University. "It's a Stagmomantis limbata ooth for sure; the hatch rate will be 150 or less."
Oothecas don't usually hatch until around June, but with the temperatures soaring here in Vacaville, it could happen "even within the month," Pfeifer says.
In September 2018, we watched a praying mantis deposit her ooth a few feet from that clothesline. That gal chose a redwood stake. (See photos on Bug Squad blog).
Now we wait for the nymphs to emerge...and scramble to eat one another...and prey on bees and butterflies...and the life cycle begins.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Find the praying mantis.
That's not too difficult, considering this Stagmomantis limbata is gravid (pregnant) and about ready to deposit her ootheca (egg case or "ooth") on a nearby twig or branch.
Sandwiched herself between African blue basil and Salvia “hot lips"--where the bees are--she found easy pickings.
According to Bugguide.net: "Females most often fairly plain green (often yellowish abdomen), but sometimes gray, or light brown, with dark spot in middle of tegmina. Tegmina do not completely cover wide abdomen. Hind wings checkered or striped yellow. Blue upper lip more pronounced in females, brighter in green forms and darker in brown forms."
A day after this image was taken, the mantis vanished.
Ooh, there's an ooth out there somewhere.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You've probably read the children's book, "Where's Waldo?"
Waldo wanders around the world, gets lost in the crowd or scenery, and it's your job to find him. Where'd he go?
If you have a praying mantis in your yard, you probably play "Where's Waldo?" a lot.
In our yard, it's "Walda." She's a gravid (pregnant) praying mantis and she never stays in one spot for long.
Camouflaged in the bushes, motionless, and deep in "prayer," she's a lost cause.
And then you see where she is. The Stagmomantis limbata. The bushes stir, and the next thing you know, she's gripping a bee in her spiked forelegs.
Where's Walda?
Right there. Right there.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Interviewer: "Hey, Gulf Fritillary! What happened to you? Something take a chunk out of your wings?"
Miss Gulf Frit: "I dunno. I was just fluttering around the passionflower vine and something grabbed me."
Interviewer: "Do you have any idea what happened?"
Miss Gulf Frit: "Sorry, no. It happened so fast but I managed to escape. A miss is as good as a mile, right?
Interviewer (turning to praying mantis): "Ms. Mantis, do you have any idea what happened here?"
Ms. Mantis: "What? You talking to me? You talking to me?"
Interviewer: "Yes, you're the only other one in the passionflower patch."
Ms. Mantis (smiling): "It wasn't me, y'hear. It wasn't me! Okay, well, maybe it was me. I was hungry. I'm still hungry. I missed!"
Interviewer: "Well, a miss is as good as a smile."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Oh, to be a praying mantis, and hide among the flowers waiting for prey.
On a warm sunny morning in Vacaville, Calif., this female Stagmomantis limbata positioned herself in a patch of Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola.
She lurked beneath a blossom, camouflaged with the green leaves and stems. She groomed herself. It's important to wash up before breakfast and be presentable at the breakfast table and say your prayers.
Then she spotted a honey bee.
Ms. Mantis climbed the stem and peered over the orange petals.
What happened next? Spoiler alert, no breakfast for Ms. Mantis.
Later, though, another mantis hanging out in a nearby rosebush snagged and ate a small fly and a slow milkweed bug. Satiated, she crawled beneath a leaf, perhaps to digest her breakfast and sleep. You could say she "rose" to the occasion, or you could just say she was hungry.