A Friendly Insect

As I pulled into a parking space, I saw this praying mantis on another car. I came up close to take a picture of him but the insect was clearly suspicious of my advance and inched away. I worried about the creature since it could be injured or worse if the owner of the car came along and sped off without knowing the bug was hanging on so close to the wheel.

When I was young, in the 1950s, I was told that it was illegal to kill a praying mantis--not that I would do it. I was told they eat so many other insects that they were invaluable.

Now that we have the Internet, I looked up the legality of being the cause of the demise of one of these large, but not dangerous bugs. According to several sites, there has never been a law against killing the insects. So why did everyone think there was? Maybe it was one of those things that was passed along and passed along until everyone believed it to be the truth because they had heard it so many times. (Always Check the Facts)

I said goodbye to the praying mantis and wished him well, hoping he would go look for lunch in the grass instead of on the edge of a car.