I bought two Praying Mantis egg cases from insect lore to put into the garden this spring. My family finds the praying mantis interesting and we have several gardens. I decided to keep several and since I've been reading about them, have realized that not only at they (tenodera sinensis) aliens to the United States, they're really not the desired way of pest control, since they are likely to eat our beneficial bugs as well. And the butterflies we like to attract to our gardens.
There's only about 5 outside and we kept 10. We have 6 now. One my 3 year old crushed, one we gave away, one spontaneously died not long after its first molt, and the last... Well, I forgot it was sitting in a container of sticks, I grabbed the stick and smooshed it. I'm still really sad about it. But we still have eight.
I find it completely amazing that all of these creatures came from the same mother and same egg case, but they all look different! Both their color and eye color is different and some even have the same eye color but different patterns in their eyes!
I'm hoping to have at least one male and one female and mating them. A female will lay several sacs after being mated only once. I'd like to raise more of mantids, but honestly, these fruit flies are out of control! And they're not terribly cheap! Maybe next time only buy one tube of each type of fruit fly and make my own culture so that I can control their reproduction a little better. They're laying eggs daily!
They're a lot of fun, but Clayton thinks I'm insane.
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