What is it?

Often we find things in our yard that make us say, "What in the world is this?" or simply "Wow!" Here are pictures of three such creatures.

This is a fashionable praying mantis. While the praying mantises do not get as big here as in America (at least not the ones we have seen), they are more interesting to say the least. Caleb found a different one that was dark brown with ruffles on its legs and body making it look like a dead leaf.

After a bit of research on the web, we learned that this is a stick case moth caterpillar. The caterpillar makes this mobile home and drags it around by just coming out a little bit to crawl. When it gets tired and needs a rest, it attaches one end of the stick case to the underside of some leaves and hangs there. I saw one hanging like that, but this one (might be the same one) was found crawling down the sidewalk.

Caleb is holding a large snail. They get rather large here and during the rainy season, they are everywhere in all sizes. We discourage the kids handling them because the snails' slime doesn't wash off easily.