Many children in Japan—the active ones, in particular—are amateur entomologists. Whenever they go out, they invariably return with bags and boxes and hands full of bugs. Today my family and I went to Mount Kizan (基山) in Saga Prefecture. No sooner had we got there than my wife and younger son started foraging through the tall grasses for insects. The hunt produced several grasshoppers and one huge preying mantis.

When we were leaving, the mantis caught one of the grasshoppers and bit its head off. It then proceeded to chomp the rest of its prey, save the wings and skinny forelegs. It is at the same time both disgusting and fascinating to watch a mantis in action, close up. Trust me on this. (Think Gladiator, only with exoskeletons and wings.) On our way home, my wife and sons fell asleep in the back seat. I was seated in the front seat, window open, elbow sticking out when I felt something crawling on my head. Then I heard what sounded like the fluttering of wings. At first, I suspected that a bug had flown into the car. It wasn’t until about fifteen minutes later when my wife woke up that I understood what had happened. “The mantis has escaped!!!” While my wife was asleep, her grip on the bag had weakened and the bug managed to crawl out. It then climbed up the back of my seat and onto the top of my head and flew out the window.

Unfortunately for the mantis it didn’t get very far. It rode for the next ten minutes on the top of our car, holding on for dear life.