The Praying Mantis - Number One in My Books

The praying mantis is one of the most fascinating creatures I've ever had the pleasure of encountering and handling. Their looks are alien, yet they can also be sleek and graceful. On top of all that, with their five eyes (2 compound and 3 simple), spiky forearms and ability to camouflage themselves in their environment - they make quite the formidable predator. Yet harmless to man. My kind of critter!!

I spent a lot of time this past summer trying to find a praying mantis, but found nary a one. Yes, I really do go searching for insects. I think I'll have to do more investigating as to where the best places to find these fascinating insects are. So far, since being in Barrie, I have only had the pleasure of finding 3 praying mantises. This summer will be my 5th summer here....that's not a very good success ratio! I am optimistic that this Spring and Summer will make up for the praying mantis shortfall I'm experiencing!! If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try again... right??!!!


Juicy Tidbits:

* Praying mantises are predatory insects that are superior hunting machines. They hunt not only insects, but also snakes, lizards, birds, frogs... and even rodents.

* They are masters of camouflage (which explains why they are so hard for me to find!)

* Praying mantises can fly

* They are carnivores, and the female is known for cannibalizing the male mantis during or immediately after mating.

* Birds and bats are two common predators of the praying mantis.

* The egg case of the praying mantis is called an ootheca.

I believe the only type of praying mantis I've found is the European Mantid (Mantis religiosa). These can be easily identified by a large black spot located on the inside of its forelegs.

Want to know more? Check out some of these websites....

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/praying-mantis.html

http://insecta-inspecta.com/mantids/praying/index.html

Cicadas: One of my favourite insects....

Pronounced "si-Kay-duh", these are one of my top three insects for sure. Cicadas are heard more often than they are seen. At least that's been my experience. These insects (the males actually) make a loud pitched "buzzsaw" noise from high in the treetops. This is their mating call. I remember hearing these noises as a child and thinking that that was the noise the power made as it travelled through the power lines.

My first visual introduction to these creatures occured only 7 years ago while at a friend's cottage in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Here we found one drying it's wings on the tire of our car after molting. It was the most amazing insect I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe how big it was, how long its wings were, and loved its big bulging eyes. I had to know more... There are so many incredible things about this insect, so I'll try not to bore you. Here are some Juicy Tidbits that you may enjoy...

* Most cicadas have a lifecycle of about 2 - 5 years, but others, specifically the North American genus, Magicicada, has a lifecycle of 13 to 17 years.

* Cicadas live most of their life underground as a nymph. When ready, it tunnels to the surface, and molts on nearby plants or trees, emerging as a winged adult. The empty skins are left behind (these are called exuvia).

* There are 166 species of cicada throughout Canada and the United States.

* The Magicicada species in southern U.S.A. has a lifecycle of 13 years, but a 17 year lifecycle in northern states of the eastern U.S. These cicadas are also known to have a mass emergence, with upwards of 1.5 million cicadas emerging per acre!!

* Females can lay over 600 eggs.

* Apparently, cicadas can make a fine meal, and in some countries are considered a delicacy.


In February of 2009, my husband and I went to Thailand with a group of friends. When we arrived at our villa in Phuket, I was astounded at what I heard. The entire jungle was singing with cicadas. It was almost deafening. And then all of a sudden, it would end. I tried to write down the cycles of the cicada song - trying to see if they always started or stopped at a certain time of day, but a pattern never really stuck out. I didn't really matter though... it still sounded amazing. Now if only I could see one!! Fortunate for me, our villa had an amazing live-in cook/maid named Sarn. Not only did she clean up after us and make us amazing meals, but she even climbed a tree one day while we were at the beach, and caught me a cicada. How amazing! I still feel bad that I didn't give her some extra money for that... something I kept meaning to do, but never got around to it. I guess I'll have to pay it forward instead.

And now for something a little less grotesque...

I know insects and spiders aren't for everyone... my spider with the dragonfly picture will give some people nightmares I'm sure. My apologies.

This is one of my favourite ladybug shots. A friend of mine said she thought this would make an excellent Christmas card. I have hundreds of ladybug shots, especially since this past autumn was so very mild. I was still getting shots of ladybugs out enjoying the sun in November!

This particular ladybug is an Asian multicoloured lady beetle and is easily identified by the "M" shaped marking behind its head (on the pronotum).  

The "M" on this ladybug easily identifies this as the Asian multicoloured lady beetle

Here are some more Juicy Tidbits.....

• The Asian multicoloured lady beetle is a tree-dweller and eats aphids
• Is usally about 8 to 9 mm in length... one of the larger lady beetles
• It is also known as the Southern lady beetle, Halloween lady beetle or the Japanese lady beetle depending on what part of the world you are from
• They come in a variety of colours ranging from yellow to red to orange and rarely even black
• Their spots vary as well -- from 19 to less than 19 to none. The spots themselves can vary too... from well defined to barely visible traces
• The black "M" shaped marking on its pronotum can appear as a thick,solid marking, as a thin marking or as a broken "M"
• They are capable of biting

Links to other lady beetle sites:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/debu/lady/lady-beetles.htm  Lady Beeltes of Ontario website put up by the University of Guelph.   Great pictures and information found here. 

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/M1176.html  University of Minnesota article by Jeffrey Hahn

Resources used

1. Kaufman's "Field Guide to Insects of North America", page 156
2. The two websites listed above... Lady Beetles of Ontario and the University of Minnesota article by Jeffrey Hahn.

Happy Boxing Day everyone... enjoy your day!

Hanging by a Head: The Fabulous Dock Spider

This is a dolomedes fishing spider.  A very happy, about to be well fed, fishing spider who has neatly removed the head of an unfortunate dragonfly.  You may better know this spider as a raft spider, a wharf spider, or (more popularly) as a dock spider. These spiders are amazing creatures... they are able to walk on water (much like a water strider) where they are able to hunt mayflies, aquatic insects and even small fish. They even have the ability to hunt underwater! This particular spider was an excellent dragonfly hunter, as I found him with another unfortunate dragonfly victim the following week.

This was not my first fishing spider find.  That had occured a year before, and was by far my most exciting find.  Ever since we had moved to Ontario, we would often hear people talking about the giant dock spiders they have at their cottage.  Every time I found myself near the water, or at someone's lakeside property, I would eagerly seek out these giant beauties - but never found any!  Finally, while at our friend's cottage on Lake of Bays, I happened upon a female dock spider and her spiderlings.  She was HUGE! Including her leg span, she was about the size of my hand.  The size of my HAND!  I had never seen a spider that big here in Canada!  I was able to get many shots of her, but was never brave enough to get a shot of my hand in the picture to help show proportions.  After that, I started spotting dock spiders all over the place.  On the dock near where I found the female, I found several males, who were all considerably smaller than the female.  This is known as sexual dimorphism. 




A female fishing spider with spiderlings. 

When it comes to identifying spiders, there are several things you can look at to help figure out what you're dealing with. Size, colour, special markings, etc. When it comes to the fishing spider, one of my favourite ways of telling what I have is by looking at the eye pattern of the spider. For the fishing spider, I look for two rows of 4 eyes stacked on each other like little smiles. I have cropped and enlarged two photos to show the pattern. My apologies for the quality, but cropping and enlarging compromises photo quality.

                                                                             Two rows of 4 eyes.  

Here is a link to Bug Guide that takes you a page showing all the different eye patterns of different spiders:  http://bugguide.net/node/view/84423

I no longer find it so difficult to find fishing spiders.  There is a little creek that feeds into the lake near my house.  Every summer I am easily able to find dock spiders in the tall grasses that grace the banks of the creek - and then I take plenty of photos to share with family and friends!