At 2 1/2" long, I took photos and then let her poke it with a stick. It popped of the fence, looking like it had been there for quite some time. We lost it in the leaf matter. I sent the photos to What's That Bug? Daniel Marlos, the Bugman of Mt. Washington responded. It's an Ootheca, an egg case of a Preying Manits, looking like it had already released hundreds of aphid-eating babies.
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Suddenly the scale of the egg-laying in the Alien movies is not so out of the realm of possibilities.
