In 1967, the British rock band, Procol Harum wrote a song that would become the most popular single in history, and sold over 10 million copies world wide. In 2004, the song was chosen by British Broadcasting as the most famous song of the last 70 years. The name of the song was " A Whiter Shade of Pale. " The song was revolutionary for the complexity of its classical composition, that paid homage to the German Baroque composer John Sebastian Bach ( 1685 - 1750 ), and for its lyrics with seductive mystical and sexual allusions. The title of the song is famous for the contradiction of the juxtaposition of incompatible words.
The photo of the 6th of February of Kurt Lolo of Lolo Pics in his series of Pose Nature, of a green mantis on a green branch of mint made me think of the song by Procol Harum. The photo, taken at Ait - Aissa, Aokas, shows a very charming small mantis in apparent meditation on a twig of mint in bloom. The dominating colour of the mantis and the mint is a bright, fresh green. It is like a magnificent watercolour painted by a skilled artist, all in one continuous brush stroke, confident, elegant, like an illustrated Chinese calligraphy. The mantis is a part of the twig of mint, and the twig of mint is an extension of the mantis. It is wonderful, how the nature photographer was able to create this visual harmony between the mantis and the mint, in colour, in movement. The tail of the mantis has the same horizontal lines as the leaves of the mint branch. Everything is a play of perfection in this composition that is a shade of greener light, that fascinates with the same boldness as the title " A Whiter Shade of Pale ". The mantis is a curious insect, that chooses its habitat of herbs and plants that are green if she is green, and plants that are dry and brown if she is brown or yellow as well. There are mantis, like the Malaysian mantis, that choose orchids of the same pink and yellow colour as they are themselves, and that are also the same shape as the mantis. There are also mantis, like the European mantis, Mantis religiosa, that can change colour by herself, from green to brown, or brown to green, and it is said that only baby mantis of all species can change colour by themselves, adult mantis, with the exception of just a few species, are too bright to be able to do so.
The mantis is a voracious predator, that eats frogs, birds, lizards, fish, and even smaller mantis of its own species. They are ambush hunters, and attack their prey with force and speed, with the help of their sharp raptorial legs. The Chinese species of mantis live longer if they can augment their energy by eating pollen. There are more than 2400 species of mantis, and the great majority of them are found in the tropics. The oldest fossils of mantis were found in Siberia and go back about 135 million years. Mantis have stereoscopic vision, and the capacity to rotate their heads to better locate their prey, which gives them the appearance of robots. Mantis are very patient, and are able to stay immobile for long periods of time, to deceive their prey. This together with their predilection to hide in vegetation that imitates their colour, makes them very efficient hunters. All species of mantis practice sexual cannibalism, and it is now believed that the reason the female mantis kill and eat their male partners is that the females have need of increased nutrition to produce and nourish their offspring. It has been observed that females that are well fed before breeding season rarely kill and eat their male partners. Somewhere, there has to be a lesson there for the world of humans...
The mantis has been a part of literature since antiquity. She is found in the literature of the ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks, and her presence persists today. The futurist writer Aldous Huxley ( 1894 - 1963 ) of who his most famous book is " Brave New World ", about a dystopian future, has a reference about a mantis in his 1962 book " Island ", when he speaks of death. The Dutch artist M.C . Escher ( 1898 - 1972 ) has a wood engraving titled, " Dream ", that is of a human size mantis standing over a sleeping bishop. The 1957 film " The Deadly Mantis " has as the antagonist a monstrous mantis. The mantis is also considered a cultural trope for the femme fatale, and is the theme of a 2008 film by Isabella Rossellini, " Green Porno ", on the life of a mantis, and it is the theme also of comics such as those by Cable, Guy and Rodd, LeLievre, T. McCracken and Mark Parisi.
There are two Chinese martial art movements and strategies based on the mantis. In South Africa, the Khoi and San cultures worship the mantis, and the ancient Greeks believed the mantis had supernatural powers, like being able to help lost travelers find their way, and the ancient Egyptians believed the mantis helped dead souls find their way to the underworld.
The charming photograph of Kurt Lolo of the green mantis enjoying the sun and hospitality of a green mint plant, is proof that the mantis continues to fascinate and enchant us, that this creature has a voodoo all her own, and possesses the seductive power perhaps a bit dubious, of the unsettling female charms.
Trudi Ralston
The research on the song of 1967 of Procol Harum " A Whiter Shade of Pale ", and the research on the fascinating world of the mantis, courtesy of Wikipedia.
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