Meet Bazza, or perhaps Bruce, I’m not sure which. I just know it was a classic Aussie name that my son’s friend christened this beautiful insect with on a hot day at the tail-end of summer. Of course it could be a female, I don’t know, but I don’t think that matters in the scheme of things (unless of course you are a male mantis, as the females can be cannabilistic).
Purple-winged mantises are common all over Australia and are quite happy in urban areas. This one was found on the edge of a lushly grassed cricket oval, surrounded by brown, dried paddocks on the outskirts of the small New South Wales township of Howlong. I was tasked with looking after him while my son and his friend, Jordan, and their Under 14’s cricket team tried to defeat the Howlong Spiders in a grand final match. Bazza sat quite happily on my hand the entire match, perhaps enjoying the respite from the hot sun, and tolerating me moving my hand this way and that as I tried to one-handedly take a photo of the iridescent green eyes and striking body stripes.
The purple wings are hidden unless they’re flying and as it never tried to move away I didn’t get the pleasure of seeing them. Bazza never flinched and regarded me with stoic calm, occasionally shifting position slightly. Purple-winged mantises feed mainly on bees and flies and can be opportunistic when they mate, the female sometimes chewing off the male’s head to give her extra nutrition for the developing eggs. Jordan carefully returned Bazza to the long grass after the Howlong Spiders prevailed in a tough final. Ably supported by a vocal crowd of their supporters, the Spiders’ equanamity reflected that of Bazza as they never faltered despite a few heroic efforts by Jordan’s and my son’s team. The lesson for the day could have been: know what you’re capable of, believe you can do it, and don’t blink. Bazza certainly didn’t.