Knock, knock. Winter is coming has come to Hong Kong
For the majority of the year, Hong Kong weather is sweltering. But there are a couple of months where it gets cool enough that you’d do well to wear a light jacket or a hoodie while out and about. Not very long ago, I was celebrating the arrival of cooler weather. Thirty-ish days later, I’m pleased to report another seasonal step-change. We’re seeing low-60s °F (high-ish teens in °C). Hong Kong’s version of winter has begun.
It was about the size of my outstretched (adult male) hand from wrist to fingertips. Silent, no audio.
The little feller (or lady) in the video clip above was rapping on one pane of glass in our living room on the evening of October 20th, a month and a little more ago now. It was as loud as the sound of somebody forcefully tapping the window with the point of a pencil or pen and had already drawn the attention of both of our cats, who were taking turns crouching beneath the edge of the window frame and then and springing up and slapping their paws against the window’s inner surface, when I showed up to investigate.
There’s one very unambiguous sex difference between male and female mantids, but I didn’t get a clear enough shot or video clip of this visitor to feel comfortable trying to ascertain the the number of segments in its abdomen (8 for a male and 6 for a female). Other dimorphisms seem quite subjective, like the others mentioned in a thread on r/mantids (Is my praying mantis a male or a female? Also I’ve never tried to keep one as a pet? Any tips for a first timer? Thanks). My suspicion is that the star of my clip is a female. Mantids have short lifespans, don’t thrive in the cold, and authoritative sources are pretty adamant about them not surviving the winter. So, it’s likely feeling very torpid right about now or, more likely, has already shuffled off this mortal coil. Hopefully, it made the most of its time, mated, and (if female) laid a clutch of eggs. The antennae do appear, to my untrained eye, on the shorter and thinner side. That would be consistent with it having been a she. Again, though, I don’t really know for sure and never will.