BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Exotic Pets Praying Mantis

A good friend of mine is raising praying mantids (that's the plural of 'mantis'). He tried last summer, but ants got into his apartment and ate the baby mantids, <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

This summer is going much better. All the mantids are still sub-adult (meaning none have their wings yet), but the largest just shed and is now about 3.5 inches in length. As I have a tattoo of a praying mantis, I wanted him to take a picture of my shoulder with a real mantis sitting next to the tattoo.

What you see here is one of the best from our digital photo session earlier this afternoon:



That little green guy on my left shoulder is the mantis. They are amazing to watch up close. They walk lightly but when they decide to hold onto you, you can really feel them grip!

- Rae

I love the praying mantises. We buy egg cases each year. I love to watch them hatch. One year I gave a egg case to my dentist who is also a personal friend. He forgot to put it outside, he had little critters walking all over the house. Bet he didn't have an insect problem <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The hatching process is incrediable. A mantis chain. Just WOW!
Diana

Praying Mantis is something I adore. I have an eye for seeing things outside and run into a lot of Mantis. Many times they are somewhere where they should not be. They don't seem to mind at all I hold my hand out and nudge, they walk right up to my hand and I move them to a nice buggy flower in the gardens. They are worth their weight in gold, they are worth my weight in gold for devouring garden pests. I am working on a story for Exotic Pets Bella that will include a very interesting story about an experience with Praying Mantises.

We get two or three around our house every year. They like to hang on the screen windows and watch us. The highlight of my son's birhtday party last year was feeding out resident mantis any bugs the boys could find.

The kids on field trips planted zinneas in the garden. The mantids loved it. There was one on each flower gleefully eating all unwanted bugs.
Diana

We had a mantis when we lived in Hawaii, or I should say, it had us. We lived in a beach house that had single wall construction with small holes in the walls, so small critters could enter on their own. The mantis took up residence in our house that way. The interesting thing is that we could set our watch by it. He had a route that he/she covered each night and we could tell what time it was by where it was. He mostly stayed on the upper walls near the ceiling and would gradually cover most of the house each night by slowing moving around. It lived with us for quite awhile. Very fascinating! How long do they live in captivity? As anyone here bred them?

Living in northern Canada I have never seen a mantis, so I guess that's why this post caught my attention. Are they just larger bugs that eat smaller ones?

We have lots of them here in our part of New Zealand. They make their "cocoons" on the side of the house .
Photo taken on our front deck...

http://render.co.nz/mantis.gif

A favourite photo I took of 2 of my grandchildren ...Brandan coaxing Chelsea (whose hand is in her cardigan) to let it walk on her !

http://render.co.nz/cousins.gif

I've seen, felt one once and have never seen them again. When I first moved to eastern Ontario (between T.O. and Otttawa) we were walking down main street in summer. I was wearing shorts because it was hot and humid. I felt something on the back of my calf and flung my head around to look as it jumped off my leg towards one of the buildings. We stopped and looked at it for a few minutes, mostly in disbelief. That was 10 years ago. I've never seen another one here since and I have a big yard with gardens.

Hi Fishwife,
I don't know what part of northern Canada you are in (west, central or east) but if you ever get to Victoria, there is a great insect museum (live specimens) near the waterfront. It has preying mantids and many other unusual insects, and they sell preying mantis young as pets periodically. Apparently the ones that they have in the museum are quite happy? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
There is also a butterfly museum behind the Empress Hotel which is terrific too. Lots of gorgeous live butterflies and moths flying around!!