BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Animal Life L. M. Boyd's Wildlife Facts in Today's Paper

Some of you know that I am an avid L. M. Boyd column reader. All of those trivia "facts" that are printed in the daily paper can be fun. Though I have many times disagreed with some of them, I think most are true. Today's paper have some interesting ones. Leequi, I want to say in advance, I'm sorry if one of them causes you any bad feelings.

According to L. M. Boyd, September 20, 2004, The Anchorage Daily News:

The sort of living thing in all of the animal kingdon that has the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.

Testers of exotic foods say the praying mantis tastes like shrimp. Especially when deep-fried.

An engineering firm in France now lets employees bring thier dogs and cats to work and turn them loose to roam the premises. Managers say it reduces stress.

From Rose,
I find the ant thing very interesting. Makes me want to dissect and ant to find its brain. Maybe the next one that comes into the house will not die by squashing...

Eating insects is one of the survival tools that one needs when lost. Some societies eat insects as a normal part of their diet. Some eat them as a dare. (I had an Uncle who like "Chocolate covered grasshoppers.) But, this is the first time that I had heard of praying mantis being consummed.

The dog and cat idea sounds like a good one. But, I can only imagine how distracting it might be in an office setting. How do you know who's turn it is to use the "pooper scooper"? Who cleans out the litter boxes? Can you imagine trying to get a lot of typing done with a cat on the keyboard? Of course it releaves stress, no one is getting any work done, they are all playing with their pets.

Rose

If I ate a Praying Mantis (which I know I shouldn't because they are friends of the garden), I would have recurring nightmares for the rest of my life that all his "people" were surrounding me and staring, blinking, moving in slow motion, making Edward Scissorhands slow motion movements, washing their faces with their needle-like hands, licking their long green needle-like arms - AAAAAHHHGG!! No, way.

As for the pets at work, employees at the Amazon HQ in Seattle are also allowed to take their pets to work! We have some friends who work there and do just that. But I haven't had a chance to ask them what they do about accidents and poop scooping, etc.

No bad feelings, Rose, though like Chris I have no intention of deep frying any praying mantises any time soon. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> I've also ruled out chocolate coating, sauteeing, baking or any other mode of preparation. I saw two praying mantises in my yard last week, one in the front and one in the back. My mantis population is definitely down compared to previous years, and I suspect it is mainly because the backyard birds have discovered how delicious they are. Each year I get a new crop of baby praying mantises, but I'm pretty certain that a number of the birds either live here year-round or are repeat visitors during the summer months. They have an advantage over the mantises who start fresh each year because they know that the mantises are usually present in decent numbers. The mantises, unfortunately, don't have a parent around to alert them to the presence of their bird enemies. I can only hope that some egg masses will make it until next year so the cycle can begin again.

Interesting info in the L.M. Boyd column, Rose.

Leequi

Great info Rose! I have tried chocolate covered grasshoppers in the past, and if my survival depended on it I would eat just about anything, I think. As for animals at work, I'll never get to experience that. They kind of frown on that in X-ray, LOL. Can you imagine a cat jumping onto a guy's belly while he's having his CAT scan? Bwhahahha....ahem.

Marian

Marion, that would be so cute! I'm sure the patient would understand. Of course, it might look like he swallowed a cat on the picture . . .

<img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

By the way you guys, I think Rae (Body Art) has a mantis for a pet . . .

Oh yes, there it is! See it???



(Hee . . . she'd have to drive 14 hours to come up here and kick my butt for posting that here!) <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Some of us have already seen and admired Rae's mantis, Chris. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Leequi

In person? Does it have a little leash?

I was just referring to the picture, Chris, not the real thing. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

The praying mantises in my own yard that I consider "mine", are free to come and go wherever they choose. Normally that does not include coming inside, but this year even that changed. I came upon a large mantis in my front hallway a few months ago early in the morning, but I didn't even know it was a mantis at first because it was almost completely covered with my Maine Coon cat's white belly fur and she was standing guard over it. That was one time when I wish my cat had been able to talk and tell me what happened because I have no idea how that mantis got in the house and how her path crossed with it. I was able to rescue the mantis--much to my cat's dismay-- and saw that it was still healthy several days later when I spotted it in its release area. I also 'rescued' a praying mantis from the interior of my garage and I consider that one to have been very lucky not to have been hiding out beneath my car.

Leequi