I have been reluctant in posting these pics on this forum for obvious reasons, but here goes. This Wahlbergii has been my favorite mantis I have ever had, even though she never would give me a threat pose like most of this species, and the main reason I got one....pics of their beautiful threat pose. They are smaller than I thought and very energetic. Just a cool little mantis. She had developed almost solid purple eyes and my next photo shoot was going to be of some good closeups showing those eyes. I couldn't tell for sure, but they might have started to get that way because she was getting old and about to pass....not sure. I got her in early May of last year as an L2 or 3. I had been trying to get a good tongue shot of my cham, and a mantis is the only thing that would he would eat that would stand out well enough in the pic and/or be photogenic enough, so I was using my two crippled Idolos. He nabbed the presub Idolo, but I missed the shot....you probably saw that shot below in this forum. I guess the sub Idolo was too big because after a couple days of trying he never had any interest. The only mantis I had that I wasn't scared might hurt my cham and that was the right size, was my Wahlbergii. I thought about it for a few hours and finally just did it. I actually called in sick for work last Thurs and Fri, mostly because I don't ever have time to shoot anymore and I wanted this shot. Sure enough, about 5 seconds after putting her up there my cham struck. Luckily, he missed, because so did I.....first pic of the two below. It really is incredible how fast that tongue is. I couldn't believe he missed and I had a second chance. I guess he just needed to stretch it out. After looking at the camera's exif data, I see that there were 6 seconds between the shots, so he didn't waste anytime for the follow up attempt. This time I was honed in with all I had, holding onto my remote shutter release with it half pressed, waiting......laser eyes on the cham's mouth.......be the tongue.......bam! I pressed the button at the exact moment I saw his tongue move out of his mouth with such might, I jumped when I did it. I got the shot just as his tongue had wrapped around a wing and started back. I had always envisioned this shot, but with a mantis giving a threat pose, so if she was able to give one, maybe I would have gotten it, and this would be on the cover of National Geographic next month......ok, maybe I'm dreaming now.....I don't know.
They sure do.....much more healthier than the normal meal of crickets.
