Anyone kept a Praying Mantid?

[jeninok]

We will be starting our Invertebrates unit next month, and I am kicking around what kind of bug to raise. We are going to attempt Triops again, but I also want to raise some sort of bug. I was going to do butterflies, but I think Apple snails or a Praying Mantis would be totally cool, and DS would enjoy them much more.

 

The Apple snails could go in our tiny aquarium and are easy peasy and super fun to watch, but a Mantid would be AWESOME!

 

Any thoughts or tips?

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yeah, my only advice is that you actually have to feed those guys, live bugs, like, every day. We had one last spring, and for awhile it was pretty easy to find aphids and stuff, but then it got harder, and she got busy, and forgot, and I forgot to remind her, and then there was a dead mantis, and many tears . . . .

 

Your situation may be different, your child may be more devoted and less distracted, and you may never forget to remind them . . . but in our case, I realized that an insect that was slightly more forgiving would be better for us. The silk worms? You throw in the mulberry leaves every once in a while. The fish? Can live for a couple of days off the scum in his bowl. But the mantid? Needs something alive and wiggling presented to him, frequently.

[mama27]

We had some hatched from an egg case once. A whole bunch of itty bitty little things hatched and ate each other and the few that lived we set free since I had no way of feeding those tiny little suckers.

[Corraleno]

We've had mantids and they're absolutely fascinating!

 

We just found them in the garden, brought them in, looked up the gender & species (and care needs), and went from there. We used a small "Critter Keeper" tank with some sticks in it, and DD (who is not squeamish about catching bugs with her hands, lol) would catch grasshoppers for her everyday. Then we'd all watch with rapt attention as she stalked, caught, and ate them. One thing we noticed is that she would always eat "around" a certain part of the grasshopper and discard it, so we did some research on grasshopper anatomy and discovered that it was basically a fecal sack that she was discarding.

 

She was also surprisingly smart, and she quickly learned that with the XL size grasshoppers, she should bite the back legs off and toss them, in order to keep them from kicking her in the face (and often escaping). It was really interesting to watch her figure that out, to the point that after a month or so she would purposely position herself so that when she caught them, they were held in a way that made it easy to quickly remove the back legs.

 

We also caught a male mantis one year and watched them mate. Sadly, mantids sort of "stick together" for a while after mating, and after several hours we had to leave the house and were not able to get him out of there as soon as they separated. I felt bad about sending him to his doom, but OTOH his mission in life is basically to find a mate & reproduce, right? Then we watched the female lay 6-7 egg cases over the course of the next couple of months, which was amazing — she basically extrudes a foam that hardens into the egg case. We kept the egg cases in the garage over the winter and watched them hatch in the spring, and released them into the garden.

 

We've also caught and kept other mantids, but that was the only year we were able to find both a male and female and breed them.

 

Jackie

[jeninok]

DH has a petsmart next to his office, so he can pick up crickets and worms and flies without too much trouble if we can't catch enough. We had to do that for the Bearded Dragon, and he ate tons and tons and tons of crickets, it was a giant pain! I am thinking Mantis eat far fewer than a 2 foot bearded dragon!

[Chrysalis Academy]

DH has a petsmart next to his office, so he can pick up crickets and worms and flies without too much trouble if we can't catch enough. We had to do that for the Bearded Dragon, and he ate tons and tons and tons of crickets, it was a giant pain! I am thinking Mantis eat far fewer than a 2 foot bearded dragon!

 

 

Yeah, it sounds like you will be fine!!! :lol:

[Acorn]

We have had a couple. For most of the summer, I caught moths by the porch light. For a few rainy nights, I had to buy crickets from a pet store.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

We hatched and raised some. We released them before they became full size. It was really neat!

[Candid]

We've also kept mantids that we caught in our yard. We've never had a female that had eggs and I think the best we ever did in terms of keeping was a couple of weeks. We bought crickets.

 

I have heard horror stories about having the tiny babies get loose in the house.

 

This book details the process with not only mantids but other small creatures. She has lots of experiments to do with them: http://www.amazon.com/Creepy-Crawlies-Scientific-Method-Experiments/dp/1555911188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362521558&sr=8-1&keywords=creepy+crawlies+and+the+scientific+method

[kwg]

We got an egg case one year. The kids still talk about it! It was a lot of fun. We did have to go by the pet store every few days; I remember it was also hard in the beginning to find the flightless fruit flies. Still, we would do it again :)

[jeninok]

We've also kept mantids that we caught in our yard. We've never had a female that had eggs and I think the best we ever did in terms of keeping was a couple of weeks. We bought crickets.

 

I have heard horror stories about having the tiny babies get loose in the house.

 

This book details the process with not only mantids but other small creatures. She has lots of experiments to do with them: http://www.amazon.co...ientific method

 

 

That looks like a great book!

[creekland]

Youngest has been finding and keeping them for years (every summer - he releases them in the late fall). He also keeps a variety of spiders and caterpillers/butterflies (more than just Monarchs). It really is fun watching them as long as you aren't squeamish about what they eat.

 

I'd say go for a variety and compare them.

[redsquirrel]

The problem hatching them is that they can't eat bugs like a cricket when they are smaller than a cricket. A baby mantis is really, really small and quite vulnerable. They need fruit flies to eat at first. They either can't or don't eat little ants (I think they taste terrible) so you need to get or make an excellent bug net to catch teensy bugs. You have to make sure you don't give them any spiders because even a small spider can defend itself against a mantis. You have to catch leaf hoppers and gnats several times a day. For many weeks.

 

My friend made us a really nice bug net using an old broom handle, a wire hanger, an old pillow case and duct tape. You sort of swish it over the long grass and then close it up and dump it into the mantis cage. Then you have to pull out any spiders and bigger bugs.