Mantis Haiku

Six survive the night

Exoskeleton now brown

Hungry for first meal

Here's a picture for scale. One is perched on the empty egg case.

Robert had found the egg case in our stick pile, which makes me think that I knew the mother. You see, there were a couple praying mantises around our house last year that I watched grow up. Or maybe it was just one and he/she moved around a lot. They/It started out green and half an inch long in the early summer and finally reached 4-5 inches and totally brown by fall. They were especially fond of the corner of our house near the stick pile. I'm wondering if maybe these were that mantis's first brood. That might explain why we only had nine babies on Robert's shelf instead of a hundred. Yikes!

And now that they've turned brown, I'm thinking Robert must have discovered them very, very soon after they hatched when their exoskeletons were still soft and yellow.

Less than a day old and they're already so strong and so fierce! I'm kinda getting attached to them. I'd like to try and feed them small insects. So, if you live near me and you happen to know where I could collect a few gnats/fruit flies in the middle of winter, please let me know.

Soon.

I hope they don't eat each other.