Praying Mantis

Was fishing and ran across one...fed it chicken livers. But....Yeah we have them and you see them now and then around here.
 
Praying Mantis scare me. If I ever saw one I would run like a bitch crying to my mom.
Same with those huge ass water bugs. Horrible horrible HORRIBLE.
 
Biggest I've seem was a brown female around 4" long, female get bigger because they black widow the males.
 
I typically dislike bugs but that praying mantis is cute o__o
 
I WANT THAT MANTIS!

Now I wonder. How would you go about picking one up? How would you HOLD it?!
 
The same way you hold most other bugs really. It's more like you just let it sit on your hand.
 
My dad is a landscaper and he found one, one day back in my sophomore or junior year of high school and my brother was doing a school project of how many types of bugs he can catch and he got an A for the mantis. The thing was so cool looking. I never saw one before until that day. You have some really cool picture's of them. They're saw cool!

And I HATE Box Elders. Let's just say they'll be the death of me as long as I'm working at Spencer's! Seriously. They infest our backdoor like nothing, and our door chime will go off every ten to twenty minutes during the day because of them. And we freak because ether a.) someone is in our back room, and b.) some one is at the back door. I HATES THEM! The manager, and myself are afraid they'll set off the alarm during the night and we'll get a nice call from home office.
 
I love box elder bugs. They get INTO EVERYTHING but I still think they're cute. It's like your house is being overrun by all these little wild tribespeople and all you can see are their shields :3 Maybe they know I like them cuz there's usually ONE in our house at all times...even in the frigid winter...maybe that's why I like them too. BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS FUCKING DEAD.

That said, we don't have praying mantis around here. We actually don't have very many insects at all because of the cold...

Also, I was driving through SD a few months ago and there were these fireflies everywhere. At first I thought I was seeing a shitload of shooting stars because there were these little streaks of light everywhere, but then I realized what they were when one splattered against the windshield right in front of me...and the splatter mark kept glowing...and glowing...and then I noticed it was slowly smearing and it began to look like a face, so I was getting a bit creeped out...AND THEN A SKELETON POPPED OUT.
 
I've only come across a Praying Mantis once. My favorite insect next to the Dragonfly.

And yes Box Elder Bugs are cool too. They were all over my place a week ago but now scarce.