Butterflies from early Oct. 2012

This is a collection of pictures from different days at our house.  We would wake up in the morning and find new butterflies waiting for us or come down for lunch and there was a new one!  This is just  a mix-match of different butterflies we had for a little while before we released them. 

To the left of the butterfly is the chrysalis she has just left--do you see the lime green shell???  She has been filling her wings and now Dd is offering her hand for a free lift.  The caterpillars really ranged out to find their special locations to make their transformations.

You can see the limp wings--still not ready to fly

I just love this photo!  Dd just loves to be the one to release the butterflies--and she does a great job at it!

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Praying Mantises- Sept-Oct 2012

I'm playing catch-up with some pix I haven't had time to post yet from late Sept. to early October.  Here are some butterfly pix and some mantis pix that I've been meaning to post.

Praying Mantises

We had 2 "Pet" Praying Mantises this fall.  One was small, young green - the kind I always see around here in Indiana.  The other was a crazy looking one; like none I have ever seen around.  This one was big, aggessive,  and whitish.  We kept them in different cages b/c the big one would very quickly eat the little one.  Finally, I decided it was a perfect day to let these little critters go.  Seriously, not 5 minutes after I had let the little green guy go; and had taken his picture - I went back to take another picture and found that he was being eaten by a much bigger female green praying manitis.  I had put the poor guy right in the vacinity of another bigger predator.  I still feel so bad!!!!!!  The whitish one, quickly decided to avoid the bushes and climbed right up our brick on our house and therefore had no worries.  The big jar below is the whitish mantises cage.

"Praying mantises" or "praying mantes" are both accepted, as is "praying mantids".

This is the very big, whitish, praying mantis we kept for about 6 weeks.  Can you see the huge grasshopper getting eaten by the whitish praying mantis above it???  It was amazing to see that mantis eat things bigger than itself.

Big, Whitish Praying Mantis

Isn't this a great picture of our little green guy??!!  He was so cute!  Cool shadow, too.

This is the Predator that ate our little green guy!  I chased him away from our front yard, to protect the big white mantis.  This guy was NOT our 'pet', but living in our front bushes.  We have lots of praying mantises around our house.

We released the crickets and grasshoppers--many were too quick to get their picture taken!  Dd and I had to go 'Cricket Hunting' often to keep up with the hungry mantises.

9-26-12

9-26-12

This little lady hatched right at bedtime; so we kept her in this little cage over night and then released her in the morning.

See the fields in the background--all clear & harvested

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