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This little beauty was spotted by Shocky during a post mid night call session with somebody, he was outside the house attending the call, while I was still on the computer listening to music and browsing. Then suddenly I heard a shout form behind asking me to come along to see something out-of-the-box he said.
I was thinking "was this the mantis that I saw a couple of weeks back," I wanted a snapshot of it but unfortunately, my camera's flash was not working and it had to be given to a Sony Service center for repairs. But this time, the camera was armed and ready. I ran to my bed room, armed the camera and the went along with Shocky to take some pictures of the Mantis.
Looks like the Mantis just wanted a good night sleep and guess what? Two curious guys stepped it to disturb it. I was pretty surprised by the alertness of the creature to the red focus light emitted by the camera, it was pretty uneasy and just wanted to get away. I was having a real hard time trying to focus my little camera on the Mantis as it kept swaying away. It even had a short flight of its own, a vain attempt to escape from us. Then it finally settled on the window pane where I captured some shots of it in my camera, I have put up one which I feel is one of the better shots.
For a moment there I thought about those wild-life photographers, they ought to have a high amount of patience and commitment to their work, especially to capture the insects without disturbing their natural habitat and not letting them know of his / her presence.
It turns out that the Mantis of "Dead Leaf Praying Mantis" type, the body looks like a dead leaf on twig and by the looks of it, this mantis is particularly young, since the camouflage is not fully grown. Don't be deceived by the Praying looks, it is as much of a deadly assassin when it comes to the insect kingdom, it usually snaps the victim's neck and then eats it, it has got one of the most powerful front legs in the insect world. A little bit of googling even took me to a site that actually showed a a Mantis ripping apart a Humming Bird and having it for lunch.
I was happy to see my camera back in action after a long time (about 6 months), got to take more pictures with it when I get the time, may be a little of nature photography...
Just before I went to sleep the Mantis reminded me of an old TV Show named M.A.N.T.I.S, that I used to watch back in Kuwait. A kind of Sci-Fi action series, not the popular though that I used to see when I was in my 6th Standard
