The Smaller Things In Life

We ever so often walk through life with our eye flaps on so focused on the next goal, that we hardly pay attention to the smaller things in life. But if we just took the time to have a look every now and then, we will be amazed at what we can find.

So there I was, walking to my car, I had just loaded bags filled with river sand that I am intending to use for propagating some lucern trees for a consignment, and as I stop to greet the owners of the farm that I was visiting for this purpose, something caught my eye, somethings small and colorful, it looked like a tiny trinket or kids toy at first, but then I took a closer look. And I realized that it was this little guy patiently perched on the leaf of a flower.

As easily fascinated as I am, I stood there for quite some time admiring this beautiful seemingly hand painted insect, then decided to take some pictures with my phone while I was there. I could tell that it was a praying mantis of some sort – but I have never seen one quite like it. So I decided to have a little look into this gorgeous creature when I got home. I asked my good friend GOOGLE to help me with my search, and at the same time I also asked one of my close friends who is high up in the ranks of the entomology sector.

At first, I could not find it on google, It was only after I got a reply from my entomologist friend telling me that it is a spiny flower mantis, and that this little bug is actually the feature of the emblem of entomology, that I was able to continue my search.

And as it turns out, these lovely mantises are often bread in captivity and kept as pets – I can surely see why (even if I am not one for the capture of wild creatures for the sake of keeping them in a cage) And here is a video that I came across in my search that shows the flaring beauty of the spiny flower mantis as it spreads it wings for the camera.

video credit

Thereafter I decided to read up a little bit more about these little painted wonders, and share some interesting facts about them with you. Firstly, when the little Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii (Spiny flower mantis) hatch from their eggs they can very easily be mistaken for ants (see the video below). another interesting fact is that the nymphs will have an upturned abdomen up to the point where they reach maturity at which stage they would have grown from their tine ant size to 1-2 inches big, during this process they molt about every two weeks.

Other than the painted spiral looking absolutely gorgeous on the adult mantids, they serve another purpose and that is self defense, whenever the mantid is threatened he would lift up his arms and spread its wings - this allows the mantid to resemble a bigger predator as it increases the appearance of his size while the spirals looking like big eyes.

All and all I found these were quite interesting and vibrantly beautiful creatures. Just goes to show, sometimes we have to stop and smell the roses...