Praying Mantis Egg Sack

This Praying Mantis egg sack is attached to some wispy vines on my porch- isn't it elegant? It is really similar to a tiny bee's nest...but doesn't everything in nature look like some other beautiful thing in nature!
This second picture is a view from the top, showing how it is delicately attached to the vine with it's dried gluey goo sack. This will withstand rain, big wind, snow and all the elements, peacefully swinging on it's vine.

Preggers Praying Mantis

Meet Ms. Goopy (alter ego Ms. Switchblade), the 6 inch long pregnant female praying mantis chillin' on my porch. She caught my attention because besides being really huge, she had her swollen abdomen turned out with her wings exposed and was gooping some sort of stuff that an ant was happily eating off of her.

I was a little worried that this was an injury and not some egg laying goop, does anyone know for sure? Majestic non the less.

Here is a close up of the beautiful wing display, which I have never seen a praying mantis do before... in fact I am not sure I have even seen them fly much.

Yay for bugs!

Ever Been Bit By A Praying Mantis?

I have. A few years back I went to pick up a praying mantis (I had never seen one before)- a very pregnant looking female, and it bit me! It was a bite to remember, I shook my finger and it's powerful jaws just held on to the spot it had sliced through my skin. It hurt like hell and bled. So when the huge praying mantis pictured here landed on my foot (and was about as long as my foot) I just about pee'd myself in fear- opposite my usual Buddha demeanour around bugs I flung this guy off my foot as fast as I could. He landed in this dirty tupperware next to my compost bucket, where he happily discovered plenty prey to mantis on.
Munch Munch.