Now THAT is some seriously scary shit -- my dad used to try and coax us into holding mantis (what IS the plural of Mantis? Mantii? Mantisis? Mantises? Mantisees?) when they showed up every year, and every year I chickened RIGHT the fuck out.
Now I can send him this article and say, SEE!!! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED YOUR ONLY DAUGHTER, DAMN YOU!!
~pantpantpant~
Your questions are coming, I am not ignoring you, I am just a total loser at keeping up with my LJ memes. :)
Yeah. Those hummingbirds think they're all that, all badass with that hovering skill and high wing speed. How tough are you now, with a mantis leg STABBING YOU IN THE HEART? Yeah, didn't think so...
They are, really. I think a praying mantis is one of the few "armed and dangerous" bugs that I'll willingly carry. I found one in a mall a few months back- somehow it got onto one of the trees they had in the open area- and I carried it outside to safety. Go mantis! Go and hunt other bugs in that bloodthirsty fashion of yours!
I used to work in an entomology lab, but I didn't get to work with anything quite as cool as the mantis. I worked with little yuccasella moths. They're not quite as blood thirsty and they don't have long forearms with spikes on them.
I brought a mantis egg sack in my office one day to save it from a shrub that was getting tossed, and I forgot to take it back outside. I came in a few days later to find tens (maybe hundreds, but I missed most of them) tiny tiny tan baby mantes running over my desk. I gathered as many as I could and took them outside. OMG they could have attacked en mass and killed and eaten me!! Damn, I'm brave.
But they probably recognized the sound of my voice and thought I was their mother.
Awww, that would have been so cute. It'd be like Charlotte's Web and they could make little messages for you out of feathers and dessicated insect corpses and you'd be all sad when you realized you befriended one of the male mantises and that he died during copulation as is their fate. *sniff* Woe!
I would have ran away screaming and never returned again. Now I'm going to have a horrible nightmare about hundreds of baby mantises attacking me. Great.
I was in the emergency room once with a severely lacerated finger. To make sure I hadn't damaged a nerve, the doctor unfolded then refolded a paperclip. Then he poked me with it.
But was your doctor really an evil mantis in disguise? They're out there, after all, lying in wait, hoping to lure some unsuspecting human into their monstrous clutches and... well, you know what happense then.
"It's a b- a b- a b- a b-" "No no no no no, it can't be a bomb, because otherwise the hotel's bomb-detection sensors would have gone off." AWWWOOOOOOOO! AWWWWWWOOOOOOO!
Luckily you know what I'm saying even when I'm horribly misquoting the scene. You rock. Remember that when my mail-order mantis blow-up doll arrives at your doorstep always.
Hahahaha, yes, I thought about correcting you but realized that wasn't important. I got the gist. It's pretty bad that I can quote the movie foward and backward. You would hate watching it with me. :)
Oh and thank you so much for sending that blow up doll. I didn't open it but sent it directly to my friend in Buffalo who loves Zorak from Space Ghost. I'm sure he'll enjoy it.
Hardy har har. Very funny ya bum. Even your friend fizrep is joining in on the fun of torturing a poor.....defensless...handicapped.....girl. You two are going to hell.
We are. We really are. I mean, we were already. But this is a new low for us. Thanks for being there!
This of course reminds me of this time I went to the NY Museum of Natural History, and one of the IMAX movies was "Insects". It chronicled the life of a caterpillar and a mantis from egg to baby and so on. They did their thing, ate lots, grew big, turned into a butterfly (well, the mantis didn't do that), mated successfully, and in the end, the mantis and the butterfly meet, and the mantis locks on with 4598572 evil eyes, and the screen goes red, and a broken butterfly wing floats to the ground.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 01:39 pm (UTC)I want a pet mantis now. I'll train it to kill puppies. And I'll call it Sully.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 01:58 pm (UTC)Wish I can find the vat one!
Jeebus!
Date: 2005-10-18 01:27 pm (UTC)Now I can send him this article and say, SEE!!! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED YOUR ONLY DAUGHTER, DAMN YOU!!
~pantpantpant~
Your questions are coming, I am not ignoring you, I am just a total loser at keeping up with my LJ memes. :)
Re: Jeebus!
Date: 2005-10-18 03:03 pm (UTC)Re: Jeebus!
Date: 2005-10-18 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 04:40 pm (UTC)I brought a mantis egg sack in my office one day to save it from a shrub that was getting tossed, and I forgot to take it back outside. I came in a few days later to find tens (maybe hundreds, but I missed most of them) tiny tiny tan baby mantes running over my desk. I gathered as many as I could and took them outside. OMG they could have attacked en mass and killed and eaten me!! Damn, I'm brave.
But they probably recognized the sound of my voice and thought I was their mother.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 05:56 pm (UTC)MY
GOD
I would have ran away screaming and never returned again. Now I'm going to have a horrible nightmare about hundreds of baby mantises attacking me. Great.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:03 pm (UTC)::sharpens two paperclips and pokes your arms like crazy::
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:16 pm (UTC)oooh that was just mean, now it will be one of those really real dreams.
I hope whatever you're afraid of comes and ummm....scares you....yeah that's it.
:)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 07:13 pm (UTC)"No no no no no, it can't be a bomb, because otherwise the hotel's bomb-detection sensors would have gone off."
AWWWOOOOOOOO! AWWWWWWOOOOOOO!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 07:44 pm (UTC)when my mail-order mantis blow-up doll arrives at your doorstepalways.no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 09:25 pm (UTC)Oh and thank you so much for sending that blow up doll. I didn't open it but sent it directly to my friend in Buffalo who loves Zorak from Space Ghost. I'm sure he'll enjoy it.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:02 pm (UTC)You love getting 50 bajilliion comments from me.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:09 pm (UTC)I can't wait for that new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp remake, "Edward Mantishands". ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 06:39 pm (UTC)This of course reminds me of this time I went to the NY Museum of Natural History, and one of the IMAX movies was "Insects". It chronicled the life of a caterpillar and a mantis from egg to baby and so on. They did their thing, ate lots, grew big, turned into a butterfly (well, the mantis didn't do that), mated successfully, and in the end, the mantis and the butterfly meet, and the mantis locks on with 4598572 evil eyes, and the screen goes red, and a broken butterfly wing floats to the ground.
BEST. MOVIE. ENDING. EVER.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 07:06 pm (UTC)I'll send you postcards from heaven, since I'm the perfect angel.