I was mowing the lawn in front today and noticed a praying mantis drinking the nectar of the yellow Chrysanthemum. Bottoms up. I ran up to get the camera and he noticed how close I was. The expression I captured runs along the lines of "pardon me, are you getting too close to my dinner?"
Notice his usually all green body, like the under wing just showing, has turned brown to match the fall folliage. No wonder they are called praying mantis, for that is what the "what's going on here" position seems to imitate.
As soon as I put the camera back in the house and returned to the mower, he was bottoms up again sipping the nectar as if our interlude had not happened.
I found a second smaller mantis in the back in the middle of the grass when I was mowing the back yard. I stopped and caught him and remembering the favorite place in the front, placed him on the backyard mum, yes, it is also bright yellow. He also set about eating the moment he hit this sweet spot.
We had one on our front pillar last week-- he was the same brown. They like to hang out near our front door because the porch lights attract bugs at night.
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