Just Dancing

Identification - Tenodera sinensis, Chineses Mantis.

Heavy rains yesterday and through the night, so safari conditions were very muddy. I had to take off the flip-flops and wade through one section, no big deal though. The sky was clear and the sun was shining and still there were no butterflies around. I passed the time shooting six varieties of spider and a few dragon shots as a back-up, but eventually the butterflies came out to play.

Still, nothing was looking blippable and I was already thinking that it would be a dragon blip today, when this tailed jay butterfly (blipped two days ago) caught my eye as it frantically flapped but was going nowhere. At first I was thinking big spider, but as I approached to twenty feet I could already see the huge four inch long mantis.

At first I had to up the ISO to get some shutter speed going as the butterfly was almost constantly in motion, but that condition did not last for very long. Any thoughts of rescuing my favorite butterfly were pointless as I know from previous observations that mantids always go for the head first.

Thinking back to a conversation a few days ago about whether bugs can think - I hope you are right and they don't think, because this has to be one of the most nightmarish deaths you could ever imagine, being eaten alive by a mantis the size of a giraffe!

I know, a gruesome blip, but after a week of pretty butterflies, I thought I would shake you up a bit with a taste of bug reality.

Dave