i havent seen them the animal mantid in 8 yrs they many of them went to neighbors and alot of them got eaten as babys by other neighbors quail . and wild birds . but they got rid of their quail and got into rabbits and chickens . are these the Carolina mantids ? so many people wanting the native ones even the mexican ones are smaller then the over seas spiecies that eat everything including native mantids
Can anyone confirm this is a native mantis? I’ve looked at pictures and I think so, but if I’m wrong I certainly want to take action.
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How large is that? The chinese adults are about 5” long with a few lines straight down the face and wings that extend below the abdomen on both males and females. The european ones are a little smaller…4” or so and have little yellow spots and a black spot on the arms. The native carolina ones are only about 2.5-3”.
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Small, 2-2.5”. Didn’t seem to even have wings- I was looking for that since I think it’s the easier way to identify.
That one looks pretty young. Do you have a clear frontal shot of the head?
All mantids are invasive up here since I’m not in the Carolina native range. Most of the ones I’ve seen here are introduced european ones. I had one hanging near my hummingbird feeder a decade ago that I relocated, but I let them all live. I always encourage people to only purchase carolina ooths and to not purposely spread the invasives, but I don’t go out of my way to kill them either.
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The first picture is the best I got of the head. I agree it seems young. I was looking at comparison charts, and natives have a rectangle of space between the eyes versus a square, but that is very hard to tell. I plan on purchasing native egg sacks next year.
If you have ants around, they can “clean up” the mantis sacks as well. The one on the right was picked clean by ants and there was a battle going on shortly after I took this photo a while back. The ants attacked the baby mantis and killed a lot of them. I had to help fight them off with a toothpick by squishing the fast moving ants before they could gang up on some of these little guys and rip them to shreds
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That’s wild. Good job trying to save them!
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I in fact, did not know. I got it from lowes/home depot. Honestly, i still don’t know. I just hope for the best at this point. Last few I’ve bought have done nothing so i don’t think I’ll buy them again anyways. The photo posted is a very old photo
i have seen the guy from earlier, he was getting a last wonderful experience i think
i hope he had a good life in my garden.
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have had a ton of mantis(d?) this year. finally found what i think is an egg sack on the edge of a fence picket:
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Thanks for posting that photo. Looks as though Chinese and European mantis prowl my yard, since I have seen both types of ootheca (sounds like a word I shouldn’t say in polite company) on shrubs, trees and the fence.
Maybe there is a third variety in my area, since I have seen three distinct colors at maturity: dark brown, very green and wheat straw golden.
Ooh, ooh, looking up mantids in WA state, I stumbled upon something: Litaneutria minor, a little ground mantis. The first one I saw was on a trail in Monterey county, California. It was about the length and thickness of a wooden match stick, with antennae twice its length, shades of light gray to matte black. Not to be found in town, but possible in dry and wild conditions.
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Thank you!
Those are super neat and “Agile ground mantis” is one of the best species names I’ve ever heard!
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Both “Agile Ground Mantis” I saw were soaking up heat after a cloudy morning and stayed put while I hunkered down to have a look. I kept enough distance to allow them to remain quiet, so didn’t learn how agile they are.
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When I was out picking my apples and noticed several small Praying Mantis on some of the fruit. Interesting to see them this late in the year.
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I brought a very large preying mantis into our house a few weeks ago and my wife and I kept it as a pet. Unfortunately, I think we failed it as surrogate parents (not that our pet perceived us that way, of course) because I neglected to tell my wife to beware of a possible egg sack and I never bothered taking the time to identify its sex… we named it Spock and just spoke about is as a male.
Anyway, my wife, in her ignorance, threw the egg sack in the compost where garbage sits anaerobically for months- I could not find it so we canceled our pet’s existence, essentially. No progeny as they only get one season and one shot. She died a couple weeks after depositing the eggs.
She had free range of the kitchen from the time she became our guest and laid the eggs on a basil plant… she was stuck to the eggs and my wife freed her and then threw the eggs away, thinking it was a piece of dough as she’d been baking that day.
What a fascinating creature… we would bring her bugs and watch her consume them- chewing up a lady beetle was a snap for her. If we ever bring a preying mantis into our home again, we will know better. You have to make sure the eggs don’t hatch indoors as they would be doomed. The cold delays hatching until spring when they can find food.
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My buy egg sacks note is nagging at me. How does everyone time buying them with weather? Do they get released when summer crops get planted?
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I found a couple oothecae while clearing brush in the pasture. So there are already some living on my property unknown to me.
I’m pretty sure they are the Chinese variety.
Can someone confirm by the photo ?
They are at least 200 feet from where I had let the baby mantis go into my garden around the house.
The mantis babies were hatched too late because I bought them online not understanding their life cycle.
If anyone is ordering them you should get them hanging outside asap where they will hatch naturally as soon as conditions are right.
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Looks like Chinese
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