Cool! They were still building the Harry Potter area last time I was there (2008). We always stay at my gramma's condo, since 1) She lives near the theme parks, 2) She works at Boardwalk so she can get us free tickets to the Disney Parks, and she's family so why not stay at her house? Anyway, my favorite ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure is the Hulk roller coaster. Did you ride that one? My favorite part is when it launches you out of the tunnel, twists you around, and you go speeding toward the lake. Those little brown lizards you saw are anoles. There's always tons of them at my gramma's house, and we like to sit outside and catch them, but they do bite. The males have a really cool red throat flap they puff out either to threaten you or when they're attracting a mate. And Florida mantids an be REALLY hard to find. Thesprotia graminis, Brunnria borealis, and Gonatista grisea are the most plentiful down there, so their camo can make finding them really difficult. The caterpillar looks like maybe some kind of moth caterpillar. It's colored like a wasp larva, but the head looks like some sort of moth. How big was the water scorpion?
It's a pretty amazing place if you like Harry Potter. My older daughter said she could stay there forever (I told her that might not be so much fun after a few years). I didn't see a single mantis but there were tons of brown lizards running all over the park and some striped land snails in one area. I ran across a few of these 2" caterpillars which probably feed on dead, fallen vegetation outside my hotel. I imagine somebody here knows what it is. I also found a waterscorpion swimming at the bottom of a huge water slide. Let me know when you see this P.C.
