Has been a while since my last trip to AZ. 4 yrs to be exact. Summer is almost over and with free time in hand I decided to go back and enjoy Arizona nature. My wife decided to join me as well. We were there for about 5 days but didn't spend as much time out in the wood as I was hoping for. I was not hoping to see too many mantis due to the previous years of drought, but apparently it has been wet near the border in Southeastern AZ. So here we go.........
Arriving late in Tucson........
Familiar plant in AZ........
Cool art at car renting company
We started to drive towards the town of Arivaca. There were some very large grasshoppers crossing the highway, mainly the western horse lubber grasshopper which is a common sight around this time of the year, but there were also this grasshoppers of equal size around.
Stopped by road side observing all the lubber crossing was pretty neat. I started to sweet around high grasses along the side of the highway but only found some grasshoppers and spiders of all sizes. This is a pair of nice looking spider in my sweeping net.
Couldn't find any mantis so we continued to drive towards the town of Arivaca and stopped by a large field. The first mantis we saw was an adult female Bactromantis mexicanus.
The area was very 'buggy'. I would walk on the side of the pavement and bugs of all kind will go scrambling out. Including this Litanuetria minor that 'escaped' to the pavement.
The first adult male mantis spotted was a Stagmomantis limbata....... Can you see him on this pic?
The most abundant species surprisingly was the pointy eye Yersiniops sphodronica. They could be easily mistaken as small katydid out in the field with those long hind legs. Adult male is very 'jumpy' and appear to be easier to spot than the female. I collected couple of females and feed them cricket which surprisingly happily being hand fed, despite their nervous nature.
To be continue...............
Arriving late in Tucson........
Familiar plant in AZ........
Cool art at car renting company
We started to drive towards the town of Arivaca. There were some very large grasshoppers crossing the highway, mainly the western horse lubber grasshopper which is a common sight around this time of the year, but there were also this grasshoppers of equal size around.
Stopped by road side observing all the lubber crossing was pretty neat. I started to sweet around high grasses along the side of the highway but only found some grasshoppers and spiders of all sizes. This is a pair of nice looking spider in my sweeping net.
Couldn't find any mantis so we continued to drive towards the town of Arivaca and stopped by a large field. The first mantis we saw was an adult female Bactromantis mexicanus.
The area was very 'buggy'. I would walk on the side of the pavement and bugs of all kind will go scrambling out. Including this Litanuetria minor that 'escaped' to the pavement.
The first adult male mantis spotted was a Stagmomantis limbata....... Can you see him on this pic?
The most abundant species surprisingly was the pointy eye Yersiniops sphodronica. They could be easily mistaken as small katydid out in the field with those long hind legs. Adult male is very 'jumpy' and appear to be easier to spot than the female. I collected couple of females and feed them cricket which surprisingly happily being hand fed, despite their nervous nature.
To be continue...............
Peter says he has great luck in Arizona too finding nearly everything. Might have to plan a road trip when I can to Arizona, that way I can drive all the mantids back home.
