The Praying Mantis

So Thursday afternoon, I pulled into the southern Virginia town of Victoria, and sat down in the shade on the benches outside a flower shop. As I was rehydrating and refueling, something fell out of the tree and landed on the patio near my bike. It looked like some leaves or twigs, but they were kind of shuffling around a bit. Upon closer observation as I bent down close to get a better view, I beheld a large, beautiful green female praying mantis tangled up with her smaller, scrawnier, brown male mate. They were not mating at this point--that happened earlier that day--now, they had decided that the male had done what he needed to do, and his only remaining value was to provide nutrition to the female as she matured her now fertilized eggs. So, as the male was still living, moving, breathing, and experiencing, his lover proceded to make a holy meal out of him.

I watched closely as I witnessed this event that I surmised to be a common sight, an integral part of the Southern folklore, a motif straight out of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. But I was not destined to be passive observer. Suddenly the female praying mantis, with her live meal ex-mate clutched in her toothed forearms, began turning around. When she was facing directly at me, she looked with her beady, green alien eyes right at me. We looked at each other for a couple intimate moments, but then she began walking right towards me, meal still in hand! What was her plan? Surely, she was not coming for me next!

She layed her hooked leg on by neon green bicycling shirt (I was lying on my belly, propped up by my elbows for intimate viewing experience), and began to climb. Where was she going? On top of my head? When she got to my shoulder, we had another eye-to-eye encounter, and I begged her not to choose me next. She finally settled on my back just below my shoulders, and soon resumed her meal. Now, though my view of things happening was all but lost (I did watch her reflection in the window for a while), the sound of her chomping through her mate's exoskeleton was now louder than ever.

I wanted to find out if this was a common sight here in the South, a part of the local folklore. So I began asking everyone I saw, "Have you ever seen a praying mantis eating her mate?" Most had not, but others said yes, others elaborated that black water spiders do the same thing. I then motioned to the praying mantis still on my back munching away. "Wow! It's going on right there!" they would say. "How did it get there?" And I would tell them the story. Some would say, "Cool!"; others, "Gross!" Some watched for a while. "Oh, his head just fell off, and it's still moving!" "She's eating him up!" After I got on my way, a nice man, very knowledgeable, observed the sight and commented about the black water spider's equal habit, and he asked about my trip. He was very interested and signed the petition, along with his wife, immediately. They offered me dinner and a couple bucks for the road. He also suggested a camping site at a sandy river bed near a waterfall. Well, I accepted the three dollars, but not the meal as I had just eaten, I thanked them and I was on my way.
Three boys walked up the road, and I showed them the praying mantis. It had finished its meal, as well. I told them she was my mascot. The were boggled at the immensity of my journey, and they signed the petition. By the time we parted, the praying mantis had crawled down my arm, and I let her climb onto a bright green maple tree. She will have a healthy brood, I reckon.