California Mantis by Ken _Gilliland
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Description
A California Mantis hunts on a Great Basin Sagebrush. An European honey bee leaves, not wanting to be part of the meal plans. While the mantis, sagebrush and bees are my work, the background is all ultrascenery using Martin Frost's Desert Botanica which a great California wildflower spread.
Within California, this common insect occurs throughout the warmer and drier regions of the southern part of the state below elevations of 10,000 feet. They prefer chaparral and desert environments with sufficient vegetation (the creosote bush is a favorite) in which they can climb, hide, and hunt. Their range extends from all of southern California north into the Central Valley and then eastward into Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and western Texas, as well as Mexico. In the late 1980s, they began showing up in southern Idaho, and appear to be migrating northward, adapting to the colder winters along the way.
Males and females come together to reproduce but otherwise the adults are strictly solitary. Nymphs hatch in the spring from hard egg cases laid the previous fall. Adults do not overwinter—lifespan is seldom more than one year and usually less than nine months, with females sometimes surviving longer into the winter season than males, presumably allowing the females more time to lay their oothecas on suitable vegetation or rocks before dying.
Though fast runners, both sexes have wings and are capable of flight (though this form of movement is energy intensive and seldom utilized). Males are especially good fliers: the wings of the male extend well beyond the end of the abdomen, whereas those of the female do not extend more than half this distance. Males are often attracted to bright lights at night and can sometimes be found swarming around them along with other insects, though as ambush hunters, they fly at night primarily for dispersal and not in search of food-- those swarming around lights are disoriented, behaving as though the light is actually the moon and attempting to fly in a straight line.
Comments (3)
Flint_Hawk
This Mantis is so realistic that I hope it safely survives the terrible fires in California!
starship64
Nice work!
3DClassics
So cute! I do love all your work and the info!