They're creepy and they're kooky

Mysterious and spooking,

and altogether ooky...

This praying mantis is in my backyard. I found him while watering my plants. He would have blended in on my dying spiderwort plant if he wouldn't have moved when the water hit him. There was one farther back on the plant also but to get a photograph would have required disturbing them more. This may be the one that was in my house a couple weeks ago that I so ungracefully removed. He started crawling towards my hand and I dropped him: jar and all.

The water strider was in Shenandoah on the Doyles River Loop today. I was quite excited at how well this picture came out.