Our Praying Mantis egg hatched this weekend: we now have hundreds of these lovelies in our garden.
Lovely
May 9, 2006 | Taming Eden | 19 comments
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How amazing! I have never seen a baby one before.
off with his head! he he he.
Hey, those are our babies, Kat! You have the maternal insticts of. . . Heh. 😛
Margaret: they are sweet. BW was funny–he says, “wow, is this how you felt when you had me? I feel so happy and proud.” Ha ha ha ha ha. Goofy kid.
How cool is that. We had a couple of hundred of them when they hatched. Some made it, some didn’t. Was quite a process getting them rescued and placed. “Operation Mantis Lift” – but I thought in the end we did pretty well. What’s amazing is they are so cute when they are young but are an awesome predator. Still, of the bugs out there, it is almost one you can sit and talk to… as if it is listening…
I’m calling this one, “Spot”.
Hey, do you remember all those years ago my having a conversation with one at the Konocti Harbor Inn? It was on the banister and I stopped to chat with it, completely forgot you were walking ahead. 🙂 They are so smart and lovely.
And FIERCE.
I LOVE those guys! We’ll adopt some here if you run out of room!
Oh! They were all released on Saturday. I’m hoping they aren’t all spider food. Yikes. 🙂
But you can buy the egg cases online. It was pretty magical to have all these new babies in our house. I walked into the classroom to check, and there were hundreds of them. We had to work fast to get them outside so they could hunt. They were HUNGRY. 🙂
hey, you know, i have my facial hair under control! that, and i was really just referring to the praying mantis mating techniques. just be sure you separate them by gender before the whole thing starts getting ugly.
they are, admittedly, super cute at this size. awww. where did you rescue them rom? why did there need to be an operation mantis lift? inquiring minds want to know.
We bought an egg case in Portland awhile ago–and they hatched in our school room and crawled out of the bag we used to hold the case. So, we had to scramble to get all 200 of them outside to eat. We placed them throughout our yard (front and back)–but no segregation. Nature will run its course. I don’t need all of them to survive, anyhow. 😀
(and I was totally kidding about the “intincts” thing… because, a “Praying Mantis” would have been a better word choice for the blog in question. :D)
holy crap that’s a good name! “black widdow” would also not be a bad choice.
i didn’t know that you bought the egg sack. that totally makes more, because i was wondering how you found an egg sack in the yard and kept track of it and why it would be a problem if they were already outside, etc. apparently i did not read comment #7. that is all.
Wow! So cool. You guys are the nicest parents to invite that in your home. Most people would shudder at the thought.
So basically you were invaded and dealt with it in a non-violent way. Much to be proud of here 😉
Even as much as I love creatures, I think I would have to freak out a bit in this case, ewwwww.
Treehugger: they weren’t that bad. So tiny and sweet, really. 🙂 It’s funny how mothering boys gets you–there was a time in my life I would have FREAKED out. Now I’m buying the things… 😉
Yeah, not bad at all… not like hundreds of baby spiders everywhere. With these you could just touch them lightly and poof they were on your finger. They didn’t do much beyond simply hang on and stare – obviously able to perform their spiritual practices right from the get-go. They were awesome…
I’m sure they’re all fat and twice the size of before. Still, if you ever need to run a Praying Mantis Adoption Program, I’m your girl!
Awesome! What a great picture too.
Wow. How teeny tiny he is. So cute!
Actually, I’ve not seen them now that we’ve released them to the yard. 200 sounds like so many until you let them go. We got the case specifically so these little guys would help keep down the pests in our yard. However, our yard is large enough, I should have bought two egg cases to cover it. Oh well, next year. 🙂
Actually, I’m thinking 3 pouches next year. Hopefully at least a handful survived and maybe we’ll have a few hanging out by the time it is all said and done.
I’ve had a female in my garden before. I LOVE them, but how sad that they don’t live past the season.