An evening's entertainment!

I started reading a book on African insects. Apparently the praying mantis is called the ‘hottentot god’ in South Africa – both names derive from the way it lifts its front legs when it rests, as in an attitude of prayer. And then, of course, the female eats its mate, sometimes biting the head off and munching it even as copulation is in progress. Quite an interesting little fella. There are lots of them here, and I have grown quite fond of them. Not only because they are beneficial insects, some types eating caterpillars and others mosquitoes, but also because I had a particularly entertaining night with one of them recently.

I guess we all find ways of entertaining ourselves at the absence of TV, and on this particular night, there was a very large green praying mantis in the ceiling, which we observed hunting for a while near the ceiling light while we were having dinner on the verandah. There were also lots of little flies of some kind, and they were generally very slow, not reacting much if you touched them. So we pierced one of them with a toothpick and fed it to the mantis. This may be cruel, but it was very exciting when the mantis grabbed the toothpick with its two front legs and held it there until it had gnawed off the fly.

Now, I know you’re not supposed to feed animals in the wild; but somehow I feel a lot of these types of rules don’t apply to insects. Anyway, the mantis must have been very happy because this process was so entertaining that we carried on feeding it for quite a while. And indeed, it was there again the next night, our newly tamed pet and entertainer.