.

.     (Somehow, the two always belong together.)

.

.

.

.

.     Universal order eternally smiled at the limited, rather barbaric,

.     miseducated, ironclad notions of entropy… as certain minds,

.     after tha debate, star t ed 2 d tear e oar eight 2 knot in 8 all… & fine

.     alley dis hip it 8 Ed a wwwwwwwayyyyyyyyyyyy..y..y..y………

.

.

.

.

Praying Mantises will make a quick meal out of other insects within their vicinity, which is a rather entropic situation for the prey, but a rather non-entropic situation for the Mantises.  (Universal order, by the way, isn’t going bye-bye.)

.

.

.   I love handling Mantises in the wild.  Most, when caught, will tame down within a few minutes… after they bite the living daylights out of you!  Most will tame down so quickly that — after several minutes, when you put them back down on the ground — they actually zealously try to get back on your hand; they love to climb the wiggling fingers; to them it must be a fun sort of activity or exciting experience.  (At least that’s the case with the ones I’ve encountered.)  In our area I only found one Mantid that would not tame down, no matter what.  That one I called “a bronco”… and I hope not to experience another one like it for a very long time!

At one time, I had a Praying Mantis as a pet… in a large terrarium.  I fed it thawed frozen brine shrimp (daily) from my fingers.  It lived for a very long time and laid huge egg sacks full of many eggs (that I put in our backyard).  Female Mantises can lay fertile eggs even without ever coming into contact with a male Mantis; in such cases, the babies are exact clones of the mother.  (If they do mate with a male… the females sometimes eat the male’s head off… or consume much of his body.)  My pet Mantis really enjoyed climbing around on my fingers often.  I was with my pet Mantis on the day that it died; it continually kept kissing its arms/legs all around… as if it were saying “good-bye” to itself.

Mantises truly look “alien-like” in appearance!

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(go figure)

.

.

.      from E. E. Cummings:

.

.

.      yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate of a

.      somewhat obscure to be sure university spends

.      her time looking picturesque under

.

.      the as it happens quite

.      erroneous impression that he

.

.      nascitur 

.

.

.

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(Left click on the images to enlarge them; hit left “return arrow” to return.)

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Mantids are meticulous groomers!

Peeking over the antenna… right into the camera eye!

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eternalfountainofyouth.com

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