June 7th, 2016

Our pond study program turns up a variety of invertebrates.  One of the most mesmerizing is the phantom midge larvae or ‘glassworm’.  These larvae prey on mosquito larvae among other things.  Thank you phantom midges!  Can you see them in the video?

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A birthday congratulations is due to one hundred some baby preying mantes.  We have been using this egg case for show and tell with our visiting classes for three weeks now.  The hatching was much more spectacular than I expected.  This event prompted me to figure out the correct plural for “mantis.”

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It turns out that “mantes,” “mantids,” and “mantises” are all correct plural forms.  Here is the release footage – quite a bit different from my last post about a snapping turtle release.

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You’ll notice I found it hard to focus my camera on such a small subject.  The young mantes are very quick as well.

Just for fun I took a slow motion video of the preying mantes leaving the egg case.  Some of the footage is slowed down, but none of it is sped up.  Keep your eyes on the individuals at the left who leave the egg case by waving their front pair of legs until they can grasp the nearby plant stem.

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Pretty amazing!