Story Challenge: Letter “M”

by frizztext

Hi Bloggers! Do you have to share a story or a short reflection tagged with the letter “M”? For example I’ve written about MANHATTAN (read below), about Madrid or Munich, modern times and mouths, Mexico and Montenegro, mothers and motorcycles, memories and musicians, milk or moon, military or mankind, minaretts and metronoms, Metropolis or Mursi people, mosques or the Mekong river etc. – I’m sure you’ll find an own story or a short reflection tagged with “M”!

http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/story-challenge-letter-m/

My letter M stands for MANDIBLE

Mandible (insect mouthpart)

Insect mandibles are a pair of appendages near the insect’s mouth, and the most anterior of the three pairs of oral appendages (thelabrum is more anterior, but is a single fused structure). Their function is typically to grasp, crush, or cut the insect’s food, or to defend against predators or rivals. Insect mandibles, which appear to be evolutionarily derived from legs, move in the horizontal plane unlike those of vertebrates, which appear to be derived from gill arches and move vertically.

My story goes like this:

One late afternoon Trompie(my dog) was barking at something outside on the deck. I went outside to investigate.

To my surprise, against the wall, was a Weta( Tree Weta: live in trees, common in forests,gardens and firewood). I have never seen one alive, neither has Trompie. Both of us watched for a while. It just sat there.

I decided to pick up Trompie and put him on the table so he could sniff at it. Trompie did not like that, not the idea of standing on the table and also near this insect or thing that is moving its feelers. I took some photos which were not that good. Then I just touched the weta’s feeler and guess what?

Up came his hind legs ready to attack. Thrompie did not like this movement. He jumped away.

The interesting part of this whole thing was that when I touched a feeler, his hind legs shot out and up and it was also in the meantime making a noise by opening and closing its

MANDIBLES.

It gave a warning signal every time I touched him. It sounded like somebody flicking their nails. This noise would frighten anyone.

The first two photos it was sitting against the wall.