Yesterday, my husband and I were sitting on the front porch and I saw a praying mantis nymph (baby mantis) near my foot. After figuring out what it was, I saw another one run across the deck. We looked on the little table between the two of us and counted 6 babies. Next thing I knew, there was one crawling on my arm - ewww. I finally moved out of the chair, turned around to look to see if there were any more, and we counted about 8 more. (No, I didn't kill them.) Has anyone seen an increase in praying mantises on their property this spring?
That is so funny--I bought my son a Praying Mantis kit and sent my payment for the starter eggs for the kit and the company said that due to a nationwide shortage of praying mantis they could not fulfill my order--so I basically paid for a plastic green cage. Maybe I should tell them to come to your house!!
I always have tons on my property. The babies are like the size of my pinkie nail! Don't kill them. Isn't there a fine for killing them?
Hmmm, maybe I could market them and sell them. No, I won't kill them. I did read that they feed off of bugs so maybe I'll fewer bugs flying around.
In watering and spraying some of my plants the last few weeks, I have seen several baby praying mantis. They've all been a light brown color and easily mistaken for a small piece of mulch, ot blended with a twig, they were so small and cute!! I love finding them amongst my plants!
We ordered our kit a little while back. We've had the egg in our kit for at least 3 weeks now. The kit said that as many as 150 Mantis could hatch from the same egg. I'm hoping the egg will hatch before school lets out so I can take the babies to school one day to show my son's class. Sadly, the wingless fruit flies I ordered with the kit all died as of this weekend. If I was trying to get rid of the fruit flies, they never would have died ... but I'm sure the mantis egg will hatch before I can buy more fruit flies In anycase, if we have a large number of Praying Mantis that hatch from the egg, you are welcome to have some of them for your kit
