Man vs. Wild

M's out of town, which is always exciting. The day she left, I was bumming around on the couch. I tilted my head back to take a drink from my translucent green water bottle, and when I put the bottle down, something was off. The blurry greenness had stayed in my field of vision. I focused on it and realized it was a praying mantis perched atop our bookshelf. I spazzed out and ran out of the room to grab a can of raid, but then I felt bad for the thing and didn't want to kill it. I called up DC over at bbqgrapies and asked him what he would do if, hypothetically, he found a praying mantis on his bookshelf. "Dude, I'd document that for sure. Get your camera." I poked my head out from the kitchen to check, "Uhmm, what would you do if your camera was on the bookshelf too?" We had a good laugh, but DC was really helpful in helping me to not freak out (M makes fun of me because I'm kind of squeamish about bugs and spiders). So I leaned in to take some pictures with my phone. Eventually, I gathered up the courage and decided to capture him, so I went back into the kitchen to get some tupperware and a colander. While in the kitchen, I heard a weird slapping thud noise, and came back out to see him sprawled out on the floor. I guess he'd jumped. He rolled over and started crawling around on the floor. I didn't catch him right away because I didn't want to miss and have him to fly in my face and poke my eyes out, so I let him crawl onto our coffee table and crawl around. Which gave me the chance to retrieve the camera and take some pictures (sorry for the crappy photography):




Eventually he fell off the coffee table and I threw the colander on him. I laughed at myself for feeling so victorious after sneaking around this little harmless bug (although I did measure him, his body's almost 2.5 inches!). I wasn't sure what to do with him, whether to keep him or set him free, so I just left him in there for the day. When I woke up in the morning, he was hanging motionless from the top of his plastic cage, so I shook the colander a little, but he didn't move. I assumed he was dead. But then when I got back later that day, he was moving again, so I transferred him to a tupperware container and poked some holes in the lid.


Later that night, some friends came over and we went on a hunt for some some other insects in my apartment. We found and trapped a mosquito and managed to get him into Manty's tupperware. We watched for several minutes as the mosquito just buzzed around and Manty just sat praying. Then he started licking/washing his hands (hmm those aren't hands, not sure what to call them...knives?), which we thought was very anthropomorphic. Then he washed his legs, which wasn't very anthropomorphic. Out of nowhere, he perked up, and struck out with his knife-arms, seizing the poor mosquito and shoving it into his mouth. He chewed for a second, and then spit out a wing or some kind of mosquito carcass. So awesome.


Later, I told M, and sad that she missed the cage match, she remarked, "For the first time in my life, I can't wait to find a cockroach in our apartment." Hmmm...

If you leave a comment, suggest a good matchup for the mantis. Animal Planet says that a large mantis will take on and eat rodents, birds, and turtles...