Probably Chinese, but potentially Californian

Well, I had a bad headache morning yet again & was not too awake when my wonderful neighbor Jim Schopper called me.... He said, & I hardly registered.... "Hey Lil, the Preying Mantises are hatching in my yard!" Well, I repeated what he said - - to my recollection at least.... And then it registered.... Last year Jim told me about them hatching & I was all upset about not getting to shoot it, so this year he remembered. Also, we released about 25 in our front yard for me to photograph. We didn't see them ever again. :-(

Anyhow, this time I'm getting shots. So within 10 minutes I'm in Jim & Debbie's front yard, D200, 105mm f/2.8 Lester A. Dine Kiron lens, Macro + Nikon PK-13 27.5mm Extension tube & my tripod ready to go. Jim had caught three or four for me to photograph & we started working with one of them. He was running all over the place & Jim really tried to get him to cooperate. It was hard.... In the long run he got settled in & down & I got some shots of him....

Not my best macros, but I'm out of practice so please enjoy the series.... Lets remember that my subject moved back & forth & is only about 1cm long. Crop may be in between 40-50% due to the fact that I figured where the little guy was happy & OK with me to be, I went closer & he'd move. So some crop on some of these.....