Mantis Mom.

[metalbetta]

Thought I would share this, because it's just so adorable!
Yesterday I went out to check on Nina's plant, to see if it needed to be watered, and lo and behold, there's a little praying mantis baby staring back up at me. It was a TINY little thing. Here's a picture: (please don't reuse without my permission, thanks) If you follow my FB, it's on there too..



And I was all like N'AWW.
Anyway, I found two more of its brothers and sisters hanging out on my porch, and I put them in the plant for safety... (they were hanging off the screen door and the walls, and it was pretty windy) And I thought that was that. I figured they'd move on to hunt and be mantids and whatnot, but today I was back to the plant to pick out any unsightly dead leaves, and after agitating the plant a bit, I saw a tiny head a pair of HUGE eyes pop out from under a leaf. He/she stared me down, wondering what the heck I was doing. Turns out they took up residence in the plant.

It's pretty awesome because praying mantids are among my favorite insects, and it's nice to know that Nina is in an indirect way giving life to more than just the plant. (For anyone who doesn't know, I buried one of my girls in that pot to memorialize her.)

I plan on letting these guys/gals live in the wild, but is there anyone here who has kept mantids before and knows how to care for them? I wouldn't mind playing mom for a while since they picked my patio.

[BlueEyedBettaBoy]

I have raised a couple baby praying mantis. Very fun to watch them hunt. I kept them in small containers (like the ones bettas come in from stores but taller) so that I could keep some humidity but lots of ventilation to prevent mold. Mist half the enclosure once a day and have a tall silk or plastic plant. You feed them flightless fruit flies at Petco you can pick a culture up at Petco pretty cheap. They hang from the plant to molt they are invertebrates so they need to shed their skin to grow. They need humidity to do this.

[BlueEyedBettaBoy]

Theyre pretty simple but also pretty delicate. They just about double in size every molt so that is always exciting.

[metalbetta]

That'll be exciting to watch! Like I said, I plan on keeping them outside without an enclosure, and hopefully they'll stick around. As you can tell they're still pretty tiny... Maybe not even the size of my pinky nail. I'm debating on whether or not they'll be able to eat fruit flies quite yet... I'll probably end up picking up a culture on my next trip to petco anyway lol... I might round up some aphids but I don't want those around my flowers either. lol

[vaygirl]

They should live pretty well off the pests that come to your plant. That's probably why they're there in the first place. That's terribly cute. <3

[metalbetta]

Hopefully. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I move in a month. I've only known these guys/girls for two days and I'm already thinking about transporting them with the plant lol...Depending on if I get a ground level apartment or house. If I'm on the upper level I might decide not to, we'll see. If they stick around, I'll be updating with pictures!