For those who do not know your insects this is a Praying Mantis...best known for its abilities to stay ridiculously still, camouflage like it's no bodies business and for the females to eat the heads off of their latest sexual partner. Pretty classy creatures.
For two days i watched this Praying Mantis sitting in a flower box doing nothing. I thought it was frozen or dried out...until i came home one day to see it sitting in front of the door. If i was brave enough i would have put a penny down so you had an idea of it's size and height, but let's be honest...i can kill them, but ewwwww i'm not risking its little talon scratching or even poking at me. NAST! Let's just say it was much larger than i EVER expected them to be...at least 4.5 inches long and an inch off the ground.
Instead i'll whip out my camera and document it. Sadly, by the time Joe came home around 6 it was gone. Idea 1) smushed by someone in my building (doubtful as there was no bug goo on the stoop, idea 2) the daycare kids took it inside as a "pet" (doubtful as the person who runs the show down there could careless about enlightening the children) or 3) it found it's newest partner and went off gallivanting into the sunset ie: a rat came and ate it.
It's a REAL mystery!!
