Our babies!

Yesterday morning Clayton and I went out on the front porch to talk with my neighbor Carole when I noticed after Clayton touched the banister he had some bugs get on his arms. As I was brushing them off, I noticed that they were also all over the banister. Kinda got grossed out at first. But then I noticed what they were...BABIES!!! They were baby Praying Mantis!!!

I called the other kids out to the porch, I'm sure by the sound of my voice they may have thought there was free ice cream somewhere.
The girls brought out their cameras ( my battery died after I took VBS pics the night before, and I can't find my charger ughhh), they had a little photo session with the couple dozen babies. I do have to say they are so cute!
In past years we have seen just a couple times an adult Praying Mantis hanging around our front porch. So I guess it's still around here somewhere. We found the pod where they hatched from under the rim of the banister, it looks just like this
, it's only like an inch or so long, amazing all those babies hatched from there!
We had our photo session and went inside. About an hour later Madelyn felt something on her arm, and there was a hitch-hiker! After that, every little ticking I felt on my body I thought for sure there was another one. Gave me the willies!

I remember from one of the girls school projects that they were not allowed to collect a Praying Mantis, because they were Indangered...hmmmm...so I thought I would find out some facts about these amazing creatures...I'm sure you are thrilled about the science lession...but it is pretty interesting stuff.

***praying mantises", because of the typical "prayer-like" stance, although the term is often mis-spelled as "preying mantis"

***The word mantis is Greek for "prophet" or "fortune teller".

***The articulation of the head is remarkably flexible, permitting nearly 300 degrees of movement in some species, allowing for a great range of vision (their compound eyes have a large binocular field of vision) without having to move the remainder of the body

***Sexual cannibalism is common among mantises in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperms

***The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating.

***NOTE*** I found more intersting facts about the above process, however I would have to edit ALOT...so I will leave it as it is above and not go into that process any farther, quite interesting though.

***When flying at night, at least some mantises are able to detect the echolocation sounds produced by bats, and when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, they will stop flying horizontally and begin a descending spiral toward the safety of the ground, often preceded by an aerial loop or spin.

So...are they Endangered??? Here's what I found...
Only one Spanish species, Apteromantis aptera, is listed as Lower Risk/Near Threatened. North American mantises are not included among threatened or endangered species.
Back to our babies... by the time we left the house later that afternoon, they were all gone! I then realized that in a small window in time did we get the priveledge of seeing something very special...thanks God for sharing your creation with us!