Pray Mantis

[tarev]

Yes, they do look scary at times, I took this photo Sept last year..unnerving to see those sharpies..

[Paul]

Fascinating creatures! Btw, the proper term for the eggcase is "ootheca". It's not a "cocoon".

[NYCorchidman]

The way their fierce eyes looking at me freaks me out more than their sharp front legs. lol

By the way, google image for "TROPICAL MANTIS".
Truly amazing varieties and masters of disguise!
Some look like leaf, some flowers.

I would love to see those in person.

I have only seen "Chinese Mantis" which are the ones in America I think.
They are plain green, or brown or mix of the two on the wings.

Go look up TROPICAL MANTIS and have fun!!!

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by orchidsarefun

I have wondered why there hasn't been a horror movie made featuring these. They slowly consume their prey while it is alive - head first, legs, side - it doesn't matter to them. The adults are scary, almost like they look at you as if you are a great big donut.......licking their chops in anticipation.
I have had males and females, generally towards the end of August you only see the larger females. I have never seen the female eat its mate ( notorious for that ), but I have seen a female laying its eggcase. Fascinating.
It seems a lot of people kept these as pets. My neighbour had one as a kid, fed it crickets from the petshop. As a kid I always saw these in the neighbourhood. Great big green monsters - 6-8 inches long. ( in Zimbabwe, Africa )
Coincidentally there is news of a mantis discovery
'Vicious' new praying mantis discovered in Rwanda | Fox News

Lets hope these never get big enough to eat people. My bet then would be on the mantis !

PFFFFT! Youngsters! The Deadly Mantis (1957) - IMDb It was just on cable a couple weeks ago, but I missed it. Saw it a bunch of times as a kid.

[orchidsarefun]

that trailer !

[orchidsarefun]

Round 2

[orchidsarefun]

its the first year that I seen a moult ! The mantis is a beauty, newly moulted.


that's our cat in the background. She would definitely snack on the mantis if she happened to see it.

[Ray]

Many moons ago I made the HUGE mistake of putting a couple of those egg cases in my greenhouse.

It was a mistake for two reasons: When you went into the greenhouse, hundreds of the babies would immediately jump on you. I'm not skittish about bugs, but come on. That's just "too much."

Actually the worst part - and I feel this applies to all pest-predatory insects - if you release a large population into a confined space, they run out of food really fast, so you either have to feed them, or they will starve to death. In this case, I just left the door open for a while and released them.