pausing

Thanks a lot... this was awesome and made my day!

They WON"T spit in your eye, either.

Mind if I save these for backgrounds? Won't use them for anything else.

Enjoy. :D

Yay!

Was that a balsamic vinegarette she used on that spider?

I was menaced by a praying mantis at work the other night.

I was peacefully standing outside on the porch and I noticed a mid-sized mantis (about 4 inches) clinging to the door to the nuthouse.

I was admiring it when it suddenly decided that I looked like a better perch than the glass door. It leapt at my chest, in a particularly aggressive manner.

I screamed. No. I didn't. I shrieked.

They aren't used to hearing me shriek at work.

It had a particularly vicious streak in it, so noting my discomfort, it lept onto my bare arm and started making it's way toward my face.

So I shrieked a lot. Again.

Now, of course, this is a Praying Mantis. Like everyone else I have know since childhood that they are cool, nice helpful insects, and they eat other icky bugs, and they do all kinds of cool things. I also, like everyone else, know incorrectly, that it's against the law to kill one.

My coworkers came running to my rescue, but once it was established that my attacker wasn't Bob the Crazy Guy who Sleeps on the Porch Sometimes getting angry over us not being able to give him coffee any longer they wandered off, leaving me to deal with this beast from outer space.

With lots of saying of "eeeuaw, eeeuaw, eeeeuaw" I gently tried to coax the thing onto my hand so I could return it to the garden where it clearly belonged. Instead, it decided that it would be much happier in the foyer, causing me to have to chase it around a small enclosed area.

It eventually responded to my entreaties to move outside.

(PRAYING MANTIS – Spiritual Realms. Praying Mantis brings you a strong, clear connection to the spiritual realms. It facilitates moving beyond the visible and everyday and supports devotion to Spirit.)

Just google the picture. I think the site i got the picture from says that the hummingbird 'was' about 2".

Got an "icky-er" one than that.

I'm a biker... I own more than just a "choppers" tee-shirt. Bugs get to be a fact of life, but this went waaaaaaaaaay beyond just getting hit by a bug.

I'm driving through upstate New York a few years ago, just enjoying the beautiful weather and the sceanery around Lake Placid.

Now this all happened in a split second, but you still have time to see it coming in that split second... just not do anything about it.

Praying Mantids can fly... they just rarely do so. Well call me Mr. Rarely:

I'm banging up some small country road when in the mid distance I see this small green dot bobbing along across the road... a second later I get a split second glimpse of a Praying Mantis in flight... looked like a big sucker too.

A split second after that it smacks dead into my upper lip, just under my nose.

SPLACK!!!!

I had goo everywhere... not to mention that it F*****g hurt! There was goop up my nose, in my teeth, sprayed across my cheeks. There was also one hell of a welt. And when I say up my nose... I mean UP my nose. At the velocity I was doing it got jammed way up there.

I damn near crashed my motorcycle... my goggles kept the bug bits out of my eyes but the impact to my sinuses made my eyes instantly fill with water.

I managed to pull over and start snorting out bug parts and wiping my face.

But the truly funny part came about 10 minutes later at the next gas stop. I'm still snorting and trying to clean up when the guy at gas pump takes one look and then retches. He didn't actually puke... but he did have to hold it in.

Figuring the damn thing has torn open my lip and he can see my teeth or something I crouch down and look in the mirror.

One of those nasty fore legs has imbedded in my cheek... not much more than a bad scratch... but what freaked buddy out was that it was still twitching. :eek:

Ahhhhhh nature.

Acroyear

Great story.

eeeek
 

eeekkk...hate spiders...a little phobic(sp?) of them...i remember going into the bathroom one night and finding one of the size of my palm (adult) on the wall...went back out and used the other bathroom....brr....

hi

i stumbled upon this site few days ago...and man!i've been browsing through the images since then...i'm still browsing through the archives...amazed everything is still here(the images,links,etc..) although i am still on Jan 2005...i've decided to register and maybe join in the posts...since i've found some things to be..err...what's the correct word...corrected? i don't want to post it here as it has nothing to do with the IotD..hehe

anyways...great work...great pictures...i like!will check iotD everyday.....until i've done with all iotDs...hehehe :3_eyes:

Praying Mantises (sp? Manti? Mantae?) always remind me of nursery school where we had two kept in an aquarium. Got to watch it eat lots of leaves and stuff and then one day they did you-know-what and we got to watch her eat him...

Welcome to the cellar, ladyangevil! Please feel free to contribute you "corrections" to those other threads. Oh, and good luck with the spiders.

TQ BigV!! =)