A Praying Mantis at Lunch

David R. Brooks and Susan Caughlan

The bumblebee was still alive while being eaten by a praying mantis (Stagomantis spp.). It was originally perched on the seat of a white plastic lawn chair outside my shop door, and I found it when I took an instrument outside to test in the sun. We thought the wood background was a little nicer, so we disrupted nature just a little. We used my Canon PowerShot A530 in macro mode.

Figure 1. Praying mantis dining on a bumblebee. Photograph by David R. Brooks.

Figure 2. Another view of the praying mantis. Photograph by Susan Caughlan

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