Mantis.

This is a praying mantis that stayed still long enough for me to get a group of close-up shots of it, on my balcony/deck, Sunday morning. It's so humid in Southern Illinois these days that my lens fogged up like my glasses do when I went outside. But that big ole' bug stood there and waited. It even turned around to face me and to strike a pose for several shots. I like this black and white one, but in the color ones, you can see the color of the mantis: tan. I've never seen one that was not green, and this one had white eyes. (I should look this up.) I like to think that the mantis is praying to its mantis god that I pass my prelims in four weeks.