Little Nymph

I met this little guy a few months ago. Ive been so busy of late, I have quite a back log of photos that I will eventually get round to putting up. This is a young preying mantis, its hard to get photos of the nymphs with their arms outstretched. They typically keep them close to their body, from what I understand they do this to help with camouflage. I enjoy finding them in the garden as they help to keep the pest insect population down. Interesting to note, as the preying mantis grows and matures, its diet also changes. With quite a big difference of size between the first nymph stage (a few millimeters) to adult (up to about 15-20cm in length), they will eat anything that will fit in its mouth. So the Tiny nymphs will sometimes cannibalize each other after hatching or eat tiny insects such as aphids. It is impractical for the adult Preying Mantis to eat such tiny prey, as they would struggle to hold them in their front forelegs, so they tend to eat larger insects like bees, beetles and such.