Found this lovely in the shed and moved her outside. She’s a Carolina Praying Mantis, a smaller mantis species. That round belly means she’s full of eggs and will lay them soon, to hatch in the spring. Yay! We used to see mantises all the time — now it’s rare. Thanks to urban infill and the dadgum mosquito-sprayers. A guy was spraying my neighbor’s bushes for mosquitoes and had this logo on his business van: “GREAT FOR KIDS AND PETS!” I bet. Anyway, mosquitoes breed in water, not bushes – ???
