Releasing the Babies

We released our praying mantis babies today! I opened the cup, scattered the babies in our bushes, and laid the egg on a lower branch. We marveled at how well they blended into the leaves and twigs, and then the kids ran off to play...

Beginning to crawl out of the cup:

In the bushes:

The egg case in the bush:

Spring Science Update

Just a brief update on our spring science projects...

The flowers are continuing to grow. We will probably plant them in the garden sometime in the next two weeks.

A week or so ago:

Today:


And, this afternoon, I glanced over at the praying mantis egg on our mantle and noticed what appeared to be movement. I jumped up to examine it and discovered this:


We have babies! We cannot catch aphids to feed them, so we will have to release them tomorrow. I am afraid the birds in our bushes will have a feast, but we see many praying mantises in those bushes each year, so hopefully a few will survive and grow. They should blend in quite well with the branches on the bushes, so that should protect them somewhat as long as they are still. The kids were very excited!

Entymology and Camouflage

Wednesday, while the kids were napping, I found this on our back porch:

Knowing Hannah's love for bugs, and finding this one pretty fascinating myself, I recruited my husband to capture the insect in a jar and put it in our butterfly habitat until the kids woke up. The first thing I did was look it up in our Audubon guide and identify it as an Angular-Winged Katydid. In looking it up online, I believe it is more specifically a Greater Anglewing Katydid, which are often found in Ohio, and which have a distinctive clicking call that I have heard at times outside our house.

Once Hannah and Ben woke up, we took the jar (with the katydid still in it) out of the butterfly cage and let them look at it. Hannah confidently announced that it was a katydid. I handed her the field guide, open to katydids, and let her try to identify it. After looking for a few moments, she also decided it was the Angular-Winged Katydid.

Once both kids got a good look at the insect, we took it outside to release it. The book said that it liked the leaves of trees and bushes, so we carried it across the yard to one of our lilac bushes and placed it on a leaf. Immediately, Ben cried, "I can't see it! Where did it go?"

It blended in so well with the leaves, that unless we knew where to look, we could not see it at all.

In fact, a few moments later, Hannah tried to pick it up and it jumped to another leaf, vanishing so completely that we could not find it again. What a cool lesson about insect camouflage!