- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Talk about a quail of a time....
When the ootheca of a praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, hatched April 9 on a clothespin clamped to our clothesline in our yard, all the nymphs scattered. Some crawled up a metallic quail sculpture, the highest structure on the clothesline. (See Bug Squad blog)
A bird's eye view? They scrambled about, covering the beak (beak-a-boo), the eyes and the tail (bright-eyed and bushy tailed), and the wings (were they just winging it?).
If a flock of quail is collectively known as a flock, covey or bevy, what is the collective noun for a group of mantids?
A mass of mantids? A pack of predators? A prayer meeting? Or a prey-er meeting? Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today....let us prey.
Only a few will survive to maturity. Many have already been eaten by a brother or sister. And some will lose their head to a female suitor (sexual cannibalism).
Birds of a feather may flock together, but praying mantids do not. They keep their compound eyes on the prize, and spiked forelegs on their prey.
None would ever be nominated for Miss or Mr. Congeniality.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It would never happen in real life.
A quail and a praying mantis together?
Except when one is a decorative metal sculpture.
A mantis, a carnivore, is known to eat hummingbirds (in addition to its regular diet of bees and butterflies, et al). And a quail, an omnivore, eats both plants and insects.
"Arthropods (e.g., insects and spiders) are a vital food source for quail in summer and fall, according to Texas A&M's Natural Resources Institute. "They serve as a 'meal ready to eat' (MRE), as they are a crucial source of energy, protein and water for laying hens and growing chicks in particular."
In the real world, a praying mantis and a quail are not a twosome.
In art world, yes. This praying mantis climbed to the top of a decorative garden sculpture, looked around, groomed herself, and jumped on another decorative garden sculpture.
If you look closely at one of the images below, though, it appears that the quail and the mantis are one.