Well, not exactly locusts; although, until they were reclassified within the Order Mantodea, they were of the same Order Orthoptera as locusts. Nor are they affiliated with either honey locust, Gleditsia triacanthos that I wrote about for last Tuesday, or carob, Ceratonia siliqua that I wrote about for the previous Tuesday, and which is the sort of locust that sustained John the Baptist in the desert. These abundant critters are young mantises, which likely hatched shortly before posing for this picture that my niece took on her front porch. My niece had seen a slow moving adult mantis there last autumn, and guessed that it might have deposited eggs, and then later died in privacy. Fortunately, she enjoys all sorts of flora and fauna, and was not too disturbed by this scene, or by the mother last autumn, as even some who work outside might have been. In fact, to the contrary, she was pleased that their mother felt that her porch was safe enough for them to start their lives on. She knows that there are plenty of insects for them to eat within the vegetation that inhabits the landscape there, as well as in nearby landscapes. This many mantises will eventually disperse into the neighborhood to satisfy their voracious appetites as they grow. That is why mantis eggs are available for sale from some nurseries. They are beneficially predatory insects because they consume detrimental insects. Since their arrival, my niece did a bit of research on their sort, and found that some people actually raise certain rare varieties of mantises as pets. As weird as it seems, it is no weirder than pet tarantulas. Anyway, this picture was taken more than a week ago. These baby mantises are likely already growing fast and dispersing elsewhere into Los Angeles.