Tiny dancer

She's barely an inch high

It's been a critter-filled summer here, but one thing we've learned to get used to here in Topanga is bugs. Yesterday evening, while unpacking my fresh vegetables from the Farmer's Market, this little fellow - or lady - leapt out from the leaves of the Swiss Chard and danced across my cutting board.

The insect family Mantidae refers to the bugs commonly called "Praying Mantis." They're called that because of their characteristic stance - they stand on their back legs and hold their front legs up, folded like hands in prayer.

Only these little guys are about as far from devout and saintly as you can get - they're vicious predators. More like "Preying Mantis."  They hunt and kill other insects, and are so predatory that the larger species can kill lizards, small birds, snakes, fish and even mice!

The mating cycle of the mantis is pretty gruesome. The species is known for sexual cannibalism, where the female bites the head off the male while he's in the act of mating with her.

This little one in my market basket is just a baby - a nymph. She's teensy. But she was pretty fierce, even so - dashing across the cutting board like a warrior. Nymph mantises are known to kill and eat one another, if they can't find enough food when they hatch out.

She wants to get inside my salad bowl

Organic farmers use mantises for pest control, purchasing the dried egg cases and deploying them in the garden or farm rows. That's probably where this little nymph came from. Although there are around 2,000 different species of Praying Mantis in the world, this is probably Stagmomantis californicus, the California mantis.

Pink Saturday visitors, welcome! Come back tomorrow for the Pink Saturday post!