Nature Connection: A Close Encounter

Part of the fun of being a curious naturalist is that much of what we find is not what we were looking for. We are easily and happily distracted. In fact, going for a walk with a naturalist can be informative and fun, but if you’re a goal-oriented hiker with a time limit, you might be better off going with someone else.

Over the years I have started off on a walk thinking I’d look for the doe and fawn seen nearby and found a pair of baby owls staring down at me instead. I have been on the watch for baby terrapins and ended up watching a snake hunt down a toad. All of these things delight me, and I rarely return from any walk disappointed. I may not have seen what I went out to see but I will come home with pockets full of odds and ends, sketches of birds and insects, and visions of beauty dancing in my head.

One year I was waiting for a school bus full of kids to arrive for a field trip. It was late September, and I was with three or four other naturalist educators. We were chatting and catching up with each other but also watching and listening for whatever might show up so we could share it with our young charges. White breasted nuthatches were chasing each other around a tree, and we could hear yellowlegs flying into the nearby salt marsh. Seaside goldenrod was in bloom on one side of the parking lot and wood asters were prevalent on the wooded side. One of us went to sit on an old tree stump, but when she jumped up, we all stopped to see what was up. 

There on the old log were dozens of harvestman spiders, commonly known as daddy long legs. They appeared to be having a grand old time, and we decided they were engaged in a group mating ritual of some kind. This was a surreal, unworldly thing to come upon and yet here it was, at the edge of a sandy parking lot between a salt marsh and an upland woodland.

Another time, on another walk, we came upon slugs involved in a very different sort of mating ritual and more than a dozen stick insects communing on the bark of an old wolf white pine. I’ve never come across any of these behaviors since. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

My pollinator gardens survived the drought with barely any watering. About a week or so ago, my Joe Pye weed was looking a little thirsty, so I dragged the hose over. Joe Pye weed, unlike many of my other native plants, likes to be a little damp, so mine wasn’t as tall as some I have seen. I attributed that to the lack of water, but I had to admit it was still going pretty strong.

As I sprayed the ground around the plants with water, I watched the bees moving about on the goldenrod and the catbird sneaking into the huge pokeweed plant to grab some berries. Blue jays were calling, and a monarch butterfly flew over and then away as it realized it was “raining” on the flowers it planned to visit.

It was all peaceful and quiet until something jumped, startling me. One plant was still waving from the motion, and as I looked closer, I saw the culprit. It was spread out over a liatris seedhead, well camouflaged and still as a stick. Its eyes, however, were in motion, and we were soon staring at each other. It was a large praying mantis.

Praying mantises are not uncommon, but somehow they always manage to surprise and even amuse us. They know how to creep about silently, and as I watched this one arrange itself in what I can only guess was a hunting position, I was impressed with its attention to detail and its determination. Called praying mantises due to the way they hold their forelegs, these insects are powerful predators, able to grab and kill prey quite efficiently. There are over 2,400 species of mantises in the order Mantodea. The ones we are most familiar with are in the family Mantidae, the mantids. Our native mantises only grow to a few inches long, but the invasive species introduced to control garden pests are much larger. If you are seeing mantises that are four to six inches long, like the one I saw, you are seeing one of the invasive ones.

Praying mantises are known for cannibalizing their mates. The females reputedly chomp off the head of the male that has caught her fancy, and this has led to many jokes and cartoons over the years. Although this occasionally happens, it is only about 30 percent of the time and many observers believe it only happens if she is particularly hungry. Mantises kill their prey by biting off the head and then sucking out the guts, a process that happens so quickly it’s rather remarkable.

Egg-laying may already be happening, and it’s good to know the difference between the native and non-native egg cases. Often found on old grasses or shrubs, native ones are longer, and the invasive ones are rounder and chunkier. It’s OK to destroy the non-native ones.

Mantises eat whatever they want, and they’ve gotten bad press because of a few grabbing hummingbirds. Although this has happened, it’s not really common. The biggest threat of the non-native mantises is against our beneficial insects as they do not discriminate. This includes caterpillars such as monarch and swallowtail butterflies. Are they really a serious threat? It probably depends on your circumstances and weighing the good vs. the bad.

In any case, an encounter with a large mantis can be a bit unsettling. Unlike many insects, it will stare right back at you. I didn’t hang around to see if it wanted to cut my head off. The way it looked at me though, I knew it was considering it.