Some Of Manny’s Friends

Sep 252009

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Some of Manny’s Friends

Hi there!

I hope that at least some of you recognise Manny’s name – he’s our Green Home MegaStore mascot, and he stars in the banner advert we have above this post. I got a few pictures of him some years ago in Switzerland, and he was a magnificent specimen of the praying mantid or mantis – bright spring green and about 12 cm (almost 5 inches) long.

About two years ago, I found a smaller version here in Italy – the same green colouring but only about 8 cm (3 inches) long, and consequently much smaller. He was in a small area we have for iris tubers and an olive tree, but I only saw him once (and no pictures). I assume he moved on.

Two days ago, I found another one clinging to a shutter stopper, but now it’s autumn and the green colour was gone (if it was ever there?). This one was even smaller than the one from two years ago, and a medium brown with an interesting design on his (her?) back. I managed to get two pictures that were focussed properly – and here they are:

In the same timeframe – more or less – we have had a few other visitors that I’m calling “friends of Manny” – in real life, I expect they would have been invited for dinner – as the main dish! The first is an unusual spider – at least I haven’t seen any like this one in the 5 years we have been here. Not because of the size, but the colour is what I found unusual – she was a bright yellow initially (we watched her for about a week in our bathroom) and mellowed to a very attractive orange before she died. I suspect she died prematurely due to injuries in addition to what ever it was that took one of her legs (she only had seven when we saw her). She was a little larger than an American Silver Dollar (the old ones), which would be about 3 cm (1-1/4 inches) from foot to foot.

The other “friend” was a large moth that appeared on a window one morning – I could only photograph detail successfully in a silhouette – she was a light beige colour with some darker dapples – very attractive. Here are pictures of the two…

If you click on the pictures, you can download the roughly 2MB-sized, uncropped, original, unretouched photos.

So now you’ve met some of Manny’s “friends.” Hope it was interesting for you? Let us know; we would like to hear from you.

Thanks for lookin’ in!

Jimmy Craig
for
Sue & Craig Websites

Extra!!

Of course, it always works this way… :-D I found this little guy wandering around our kitchen last night. What was he doing there? I have absolutely NO idea! Maybe he was looking for Manny? Anyway, when I found him he was just crawling into a plastic refrigerator food container (empty), so I took him outside, and then went to get my camera. He was a little difficult to get focused properly, but there were a couple of good pics – here’s one. From my experience, he looks like what I would call a tree frog, he is about 4cm (1-5/8inch) long and a nice almost chartreuse green (with cute little transparent pink toes). It’s starting to turn into autumn now, and maybe he was looking for a place to hibernate? Anyway, he stayed long enough where I put him outside that my wife could see him also. And now, so can you!