Dante’s Beach, Ravenna

The night as ever was bloody hot and in the words of Dylan Thomas ‘bible black’ when a large female praying mantis blew in on the breeze through the open window of my ‘study’. It landed on my desk between the wine glass, the laptop and the little statue of Santa Rita, patron saint of impossible causes.

I had been thinking that I had not seen a praying mantis this year and wished that I could. Now, by chance or destiny – or perhaps thanks to God Almighty himself – here was one on my desk: the colour of bronze, her long sleek body perhaps three inches long, with beady black eyes and a triangular sci-fi head from which protruded two long whisker-like horns.

She had two front claws that made her look as if she were praying but which were in fact lethal weapons.

Like the girl from Ipanema, she sashayed samba-style towards my left hand which lay on the laptop, her long horns trembling, as if she wanted to ask me to dance. But then she became distracted.

A fly had landed on the desk and, as if compelled by a magnetic force, moved ever closer to the mantis which, when the fly was about one inch away, pounced with mouth and claws. Within a couple of minutes, the mantis had completely devoured the fly.

Whenever I myself try to kill flies, I pick up the fly swat and they all disappear. Then when I put it back down, they all come back.

As you probably know, during sex, the female praying mantis devours the male who is much smaller. To........

© The Spectator