Side-eyed by a praying mantis and I feel fine!

Tonight, on my way to the supermarket to replenish our household’s egg and milk stores, I noticed a large praying mantis on the sidewalk. Fortunately, I was en route to rather than returning home from the grocery store, so I could pause and observe this individual of what I believe to be the species Hierodula patellifera (giant Asian mantis, Asian mantis or Indochina mantis) (thanks to an ID of a very similar-looking insect in a Flickr post by Tim Stratford).

The contrast between its relatively slow, swaying-back-and-forth mode of locomotion and the smooth, rapid way its head and eyes moved is very interesting. A quick search suggests that the wobbly body movements may be part of its camouflage (mimicking the motions of a leaf in the breeze) or a way of helping the mantis to accurately judge distances. Either way, it’s neat.

From the sidewalk, the mantis ambled over to the curb and headed down towards the street. Perhaps it had an excellent reason for setting off to cross that semi-busy road but I picked up a leafy twig that had either fallen from a nearby tree or been cut off by groundskeepers and held it near the mantis, intending to ferry it to a shady spot a bit further from traffic. Without any coaxing on my part, it obligingly climbed onto the little branch, which I then carried over to a deserted bus stop. Once I set it down on the cement ledge behind the seats, the mantis disembarked and began ascending one of the green-painted metal poles supporting the bus shelter’s canopy.

After snapping the photos included in this post, I continued on.

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