Mantis

Identification - Sphodromantis viridis, African mantis.

After two days continuous rain, it finally stopped. The ground was very wet and muddy and this brought the yellow sulfur butterflies down to mud puddle on the otter spraint, which was very fresh and very pungent.

Not a great deal to photograph, but I did get four subjects, but the easy winner was this green mantis. This huge female, heavy with eggs, was close to 4 inches long. It was showing interest in a small spider that was walking by, but probably decided that it was too small to make the effort.

After a lot of research, I finally published the spider - fly symbiosis images on project Noah and made 'spotting of the day'. This is quite an accolade, probably equivalent of 'staff pick'. I blipped one of the images a while back, but did not fully understand what was going on at the time, so I am linking to the article, so that those interested can get the full story.

Dave