It will be very hot today, so I am posting more of last summers pictures now and hope to venture out with the camera tomorrow.

The late summer has its benefits, one being that is the time where one can find adult walkingsticks and praying mantises. These insects come from separate though related insect orders. Of course, walkingsticks are herbivores, while praying mantids are predators. Anywho…

Here is a big male walking stick (Diapheromera femorata), with a body that is easily 3 inches long. Males seem to be more easily found than females, even though the latter are considerably larger. I suppose this is because males wander to look for the ladies, while females stay up in the trees.
Walkingstick by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Walkingstick by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

In most fields I can pretty easily find praying mantises (mantids?). I get two species where I live, although both are imports to the U.S. Here is an example of the European mantis (Mantis religiosa). The other species is the much larger Chinese mantis, but you will see lots of pictures of those in later posts.
European praying mantis by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

One of the characteristics of the European species is that they have a black spot at the base of their forearms.
European praying mantis by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Sometimes they are brown. Both the green and brown forms can be found in the same fields.
European praying mantis by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

It has been an age since I've done one of these.
CAN YOU SPOT THE MANTIS? Try not to give away its location so that others can have a try. The answer will be posted later, but it's pretty obvious.

these are male velvet ants,the female doesnt have wings but has a very painful sting.the males like the male cicada killer wasp dont have stingers.Male's fly in search of females; after mating, the female enters a host insect nest, typically a ground-nesting bee or wasp burrow, and deposits one egg near each larva or pupa.these male velvet ants are cruising among about a dozen cicada killer wasps.they get dive bombed and sometimes taken to the ground,then keep on cruising. i looked for a female but didnt see one

Just thought of something that occasionally has been observed - adult wasps feeding on the blood that oozes out after either a venom-less or an envenomating sting, the first as a feeding strategy in itself, the second as a side result of paralyzing the prey (spiders, in most cases). Just curious - was there any evidence of feeding by the mutillid? Otherwise, I know that Monarch cats rear and twitch violently when approached by parasitoid tachinid flies looking to lay eggs on their skins - seems odd that this didn't happen with the mutillid if it stung them. Always questions! Good observation in any case - thanks for passing it on!

You caught me by surprise, brother. I posted this tree photo ages ago and had already forgotten about it. There wasn't much interest shown by fellow UHHers. ___ As to your question, the answer is: I live on Cloud 9 in the northern sky which is pretty nice, but I'm so depressed because no one shows any interest in my photos . . . .
Thanks for the tree ID. That was the first time I saw one of those.