I truly am an elegant creature, spring green, lanky but graceful, long, extensible, spiky forearms folded like a carpenter's rule in front, long thick abdomen like a gentleman's coat tails balanced behind, my thoraxes sprouting four long flexible legs beneath, pebble-sized head atop with magnificent bulging compound eyes at two vertices and the terrible munching mandibles at the third No wings just yet since I'm just in my sixth molt, not yet adult, but still worthy of admiration as I pose here like a centaur, head upraised and vigilant.
You want to see me jump, you pale gawking long faced thing? It's child-play to land on that black vertical bar you suspend in front of me.
Do you think I'm a grasshopper that launches itself and flies topsy turvy like a bean bag? Of course, I control my jump and do it without thinking, at least nobody had to teach me. Look. I turn my head to triangulate the distance. I curl my abdomen back on itself as if it were a scorpion's tail. I raise my dangling forearms and stretch them straight out ahead as I thrust down my two pairs of legs. I'm launched, sleek, stretched graceful as a cat, falling forward but flying.
What you don't see, you snoop, is how I give myself a little spin at the get-go, then shift my various parts forward and back, left and right, around my center of mass so as to arrange myself for the landing: legs down, arms raised, body parallel to the bar. There, touch down at sweet spot at the base of my thorax, and a bear hug grasp with all my appendages. Simple really.
Again? If you insist. Abdomen curved, arms up, legs down, airborne. Oops, a little too far to the left. My legs hook the slippery shaft and I spin around, head thrown back to the circumference of the circle, arms extended uselessly above. Around and around, down and down, pole dancing till I drop.
Okay, I'm not perfect. But wait, what are you doing? What's that awful stuff you're putting on my abdomen that's making me stiff and inflexible, like a old man's spine. I can't jump with that. Alright, let's try. Up, up. Oh, no, I can't bring down my abdomen. I'm going to crash. Head on collision. Boink. Stunned, I bounce back and away from the back and down.
So you think you can laugh at me? Just because you hatched me and fed me on small insects and flies and perhaps one or two of my siblings, you can amuse yourself at my expense? This 'glue' you put on me will slough off, or I'll molt it off, and then I'll be fully once more what you can't hope of being ever: a deadly hunter with top-hat-and-tails elegance, a mantis.
You want to see me jump, you pale gawking long faced thing? It's child-play to land on that black vertical bar you suspend in front of me.
Do you think I'm a grasshopper that launches itself and flies topsy turvy like a bean bag? Of course, I control my jump and do it without thinking, at least nobody had to teach me. Look. I turn my head to triangulate the distance. I curl my abdomen back on itself as if it were a scorpion's tail. I raise my dangling forearms and stretch them straight out ahead as I thrust down my two pairs of legs. I'm launched, sleek, stretched graceful as a cat, falling forward but flying.
What you don't see, you snoop, is how I give myself a little spin at the get-go, then shift my various parts forward and back, left and right, around my center of mass so as to arrange myself for the landing: legs down, arms raised, body parallel to the bar. There, touch down at sweet spot at the base of my thorax, and a bear hug grasp with all my appendages. Simple really.
Again? If you insist. Abdomen curved, arms up, legs down, airborne. Oops, a little too far to the left. My legs hook the slippery shaft and I spin around, head thrown back to the circumference of the circle, arms extended uselessly above. Around and around, down and down, pole dancing till I drop.
Okay, I'm not perfect. But wait, what are you doing? What's that awful stuff you're putting on my abdomen that's making me stiff and inflexible, like a old man's spine. I can't jump with that. Alright, let's try. Up, up. Oh, no, I can't bring down my abdomen. I'm going to crash. Head on collision. Boink. Stunned, I bounce back and away from the back and down.
So you think you can laugh at me? Just because you hatched me and fed me on small insects and flies and perhaps one or two of my siblings, you can amuse yourself at my expense? This 'glue' you put on me will slough off, or I'll molt it off, and then I'll be fully once more what you can't hope of being ever: a deadly hunter with top-hat-and-tails elegance, a mantis.
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