Birth and Death in the Bonsai Garden

In May I first introduced the praying mantis which laid its eggs on one of my little trees. A few days later she paid a visit to our house, but I was able to return her to my bonsai area without any drama. Sadly she hasn't been seen since. I sometimes wonder whether she climbed onto one of the trees I took to workshop the next day and ended up living in someone else's garden.

Since then I've been waiting impatiently for her eggs to hatch and once the weather started warming up I made a point of watching the ootheca every day in the hope of spotting signs of life. A few days ago I finally saw the signs of activity I'd been hoping for.

I was able to get a couple of quick shots of one of the babies which had already wandered a few inches down the trunk of the tree.

Then I turned my attention to the ootheca and was lucky enough to record the hatching of these two little ones.



While my camera was recording I kept an eye on the activity down below. Some of the babies were wandering across the moss and I feared they would climb off the pot onto the metal table I'd moved the tree to, just as their mother had done shortly after laying her eggs.

A little while afterwards I discovered that I was not the only one who'd been watching them. A few ants appeared and were soon carrying away the motionless bodies of some of the babies.

I can only assume that they had attacked the poor defenceless newborns while my attention was focused elsewhere.

When I saw what was happening I wished there was something I could do to save some of them. Although I was successful in coaxing one baby onto my finger, my efforts were in vain as it quickly jumped back onto the "safety" of the leaf from which it had come, and shortly after that it vanished.

The last signs of life I saw came from this one which lay on the moss for several minutes with one leg twitching every now and again before one of the ants carried it away.



Finally, with a feeling of sorrow, I was forced to return the tree to its shelf.