So earlier today after gathering some confusa seeds not for ingestion though just for the seeds,this little guy was in our box of seed pods.

yes he is random but i consider him definitely good luck.

As he hung out, he swayed back n forth almost as if he was preforming a dance or he was just checkin the room out.

You may want to return him to his natural habitat?

he was already returned after the pictures were taken.

Long Live the Mantis

How often does this happen because I wouldn't want a praying mantis included with my confusa seeds, don't plants have to be checked for parasites and things before they are distributed. Should I start worring about the quality of the seeds, bark and other things I order?

it Never happens,it was not An order at all, i got the seeds from were i live, and you do not want to CONSUME confusa seed in any way.

I like mantids, this is my friend's one. There are pics out there of them snatching hummingbirds out of thin air and eating them. Not bad going for an insect!

Long live the mantis indeed! She and her brethren will keep your plants healthy and free of pests - Mantids are wonderful predators and great garden helpers!

That pic is awesome!! I never understood how creatures can do that. I mean, how can they evolve to make their designs look like eyes? That is the theory anyway, that creatures with those markings somehow evolved to have markings that make them appear bigger than they are to scare away predators. HOW DID THEIR CELLS KNOW TO DO THAT!!?!??!?!

It is pretty crazy. There is this frog that gets preyed on by snakes...it puffs itself up to appear bigger, and has eye spots on its back. The weird thing is...the frog always faces the snake head on...so the snake never really sees its eye spots. Maybe to help with getting attacked from behind, I'm not sure. A bit different, but not that much different, woodsman in India in some parts wear facemasks on the back of their heads, as tigers like to attack from behind apparently.

Well I guess this trait would have been selected for...it seems highly successful, as moths, mantids, phasmids, frogs and many other species have all evolved this trait separately many different times. And often these eye spots only need to look very vaguely like eyes at all to have the desired effect. So over a very long time frame, these eyes will have been selected for by predators that are also evolving with their prey, producing more complex and detailed eye spots. So a chance original mutation, and then some natural selection would have a vast impact. It only takes the appearance of one great idea to completely change the playing field with evolution. Like hyperparasites...these specialise in parasitizing only the parasites of other insects. The chances of this ever happening in evolution may seem incredibly remote (at least they did to me) but it only takes one instance for this particular life strategy to occur, be successful, and then all the offspring produced will go on the exploit the same niche. So over a long enough time span, the seemingly improbable almost become inevitable.

As Terrence McKenna once said: "Nature is the great visible engine of creativity against which all other creative efforts are measured."

Long live the MANTIS!!!