Macro Monday Eats Ants On Thursday, Zorak Is Your God Now

We have a Japanese beetle problem, and really, the best way to handle Japanese beetles is to hand-pick them. If you ever use the bag traps, you note a disclaimer that says you need to change the bag traps often because Japanese beetles are repelled by the smell of their own dead. Which should give you an idea as to how I control the beetles — I hand pick them, I squish them, and then I leave their corpses there. It works. It reduces their attacks on our plants (the crepe myrtle in particular), because why wouldn’t it? If you saw a breakfast buffet but around it were piled the head-crushed corpses of other diners, you might stay the fuck away from that buffet. The smell alone would turn you off the scramby eggs, I think.

It works. The beetles stay away, mostly. And I get to crush beetles, like a proper weirdo.

Anyway, while there, I glanced over at one of our coral bells, and lo and behold —

A praying mantis, who we will call Zorak.

Mid-size, not fully-grown. Just hanging out. Waiting. I snapped some shots, none of them good.

Later, though, I found a carpenter ant. I took this ant, and I dropped him onto the coral bells.

Less than a minute later, Zorak had the ant and was crunching merrily upon it, and then I was able to capture some shots with which I am particularly delighted. (I also fed Zorak twice this morning, and much faster — drop ant, karate strike, time to eat.)

Before I post those shots, though, some more news-bug bits —

Tor.com has posted an excerpt of Invasive!

And you can find a sample of the Invasive audiobook narrated by Xe Sands here!

Non-bug-related, you will find an interview with me at io9 about Life Debt.

And back to bug-related but not very me-related, guess what? They found a whole new species of ant, and it is the Dragon Ant, and it is spiky and it is awesome. Go check them out here.

(Preorder Invasive: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N)

Now: TIME TO FEED ZORAK