{"id":27622,"date":"2017-03-04T02:03:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T08:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/chinese-mantids\/"},"modified":"2024-01-10T13:39:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T19:39:58","slug":"chinese-mantids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/chinese-mantids\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Mantids"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time of year, Chinese mantid egg cases are pretty easy to find. Look for squarish forms, about the size, shape and color, of a toasted marshmallow, attached to plant stems in gardens and natural areas.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Chinese Mantids<\/h2>\n

March 3, 2017<\/h4>\n

I suppose we all have different ways of coping with winter doldrums. Even though this winter has been far from dull\u2014or wintery, for that matter\u2014it\u2019s still nice to have a few traditions that remind us that when winter comes, spring isn\u2019t far behind.<\/p>\n

My mom, for example, grows an amaryllis every January. In fact, this year she\u2019s supplementing that giant bloom with another indoor bulb-growing venture, a lovely purple hyacinth.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at Hickory Knolls, we are cultivating new life of a different sort:\u00a0 a fresh batch of Chinese mantids.<\/p>\n

Our latest foray into mantid-raising (we\u2019ve had several, what, clutches? Litters? over the years) began somewhat unexpectedly about three weeks ago. I wasn\u2019t in the office at the time but received a text from my amazingly tolerant coworkers that read, in part, \u201cYou\u2019ve hatched! Baby praying mantis all over!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, those four exclamation points were part of the text. For added emphasis, I guess.<\/p>\n

At any rate, when I arrived at work I found an aquarium sealed up tight with paper and packing tape, all the better to contain the 200 or so little buggers that were popping out of their egg case like puppies scrambling through an open gate.<\/p>\n

Hundreds and hundreds of puppies, that is, furless and six-legged, but otherwise just as cute as any baby dog.<\/p>\n

Their former home, an ootheca, or egg case, was one of several collected by our coworker, restoration ecologist Jill Voegtle, a month or so ago. At first it might seem odd that we\u2019d want to remove the cases because, after all, they\u2019ve been touted for decades as an effective means of biological insect control. With these guys on duty, we in theory would have less need for pesticides. And fewer chemicals mean a healthier environment, right?<\/p>\n

The only problems are that: a) Chinese mantids eat plenty of beneficial insects too; b) large females also consume vertebrate prey, including hummingbirds and small snakes; and c) they\u2019re not native and, as such, have the potential to outcompete our native arthropod predators like spiders, assassin bugs and ambush bugs.<\/p>\n

So Chinese mantids aren\u2019t welcome outside. But they make for a really compelling display inside.<\/p>\n

Shortly after that first egg case hatched, we dismantled the packing tape-sealed aquarium and set up our 200 bundles of joy in a fine-meshed insect rearing container called a Praying Mantis Pagoda.<\/p>\n

Since then we\u2019ve seen quite a bit of attrition, which at first might seem like our little habitat is failing. But such loss actually is a praying mantis rite of passage. In the wild as well as in captivity, stronger individuals consume their weaker brethren.<\/p>\n

As of this writing we\u2019re down to about a half dozen young mantids. Each survivor has staked out a territory within the enclosure and guards it carefully. Now that the little guys are a bit bigger, they\u2019re less inclined to feed on each other, and more apt to pursue other prey, which we\u2019ve provided in the form of flightless fruit flies\u2014the mantid equivalent of puppy chow.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been pretty awesome watching the little guys grow\u2014and\u00a0 the fun doesn\u2019t show any signs of slowing down. We have six more egg cases that have yet to hatch, and that\u2019s assuming Jill doesn\u2019t come across any more as she trims and prunes the vegetation outside the nature center.<\/p>\n

You know what\u2019s also neat? We don\u2019t have a monopoly on mantids. You too can raise one, or some, as indoor pets. All you need are some egg cases\u2014which you can collect freely, as they are not native\u2014and a small container. Before we received our pagoda, we used to use a gallon-size plastic pretzel jar, rubber-banding a square of screen in place of the lid. You can buy flightless fruit flies at pretty much any pet store, or you can raise your own flighted flies by letting some bananas age past their prime.<\/p>\n

By the time the mantids need larger prey, our local insects should be starting to show themselves. Small grasshoppers are good options, as are cockroaches. In a pinch you can also buy pet store crickets.<\/p>\n

Chinese mantids aren\u2019t quite as showy as amaryllis blooms, nor as fragrant as hyacinths. But there\u2019s something very fulfilling about raising one to adulthood. Plus, they\u2019re darn cute, like furless, six-legged puppies\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This time of year, Chinese mantid egg cases are pretty easy to find. Look for squarish forms, about the size, shape and color, of a toasted marshmallow, attached to plant stems in gardens and natural areas.\u00a0 Chinese Mantids March 3, 2017 I suppose we all have different ways of coping with winter doldrums. Even though<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101031,"featured_media":27623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[133,111,324,325],"class_list":["post-27622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-good-natured","tag-bug","tag-insect","tag-mantid","tag-praying-mantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101031"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33594,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27622\/revisions\/33594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stcnature.org\/good-natured\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}