Preying Mantis Nymph
Location: Mount Washington, Los Angeles, CA
August 1, 2012
Today we were trimming the rose bushes. We don’t particularly like roses, but they have been there for 12 years and despite the sketchy attention they get, they seem to do well. There are several creatures that love the roses, including the Green Lynx Spiders and the Skudder’s Bush Katydids, but today was a first for us. We spotted this immature Preying Mantis, most likely Stagmomantis californica, the California Mantis, trying to avoid us by scuttling under the leaves. The little guy was only about an inch long. We got the camera and managed to get a few mediocre photographs. We see one or two adult California Mantids each year, generally in the fall, but this nymph is a first for us. There are some advantages to having a wild garden and not using pesticides.
