lissarae

I spent much of my youth in rural South Jersey, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Summers were spent outside, and I became fascinated with the animals and insects I encountered. When I had my children, they shared my fascination and quickly became adept at finding skinks, toads, turtles and many species of spiders - and of course, mantids.

Three years ago we moved even further into nowhere, staying with family temporarily, right on the edge of Wharton State Park near the Mullica River. During our stay, there were two wild mantids that would "visit" daily.

After moving to our new place, one county over, I was dismayed that our apartment complex used pesticides on the grounds, as it kept all insects, even beneficial ones at bay.

So when a neighbor frantically posted online that bugs were hatching from her Christmas tree this last December, unaware that a mantis had left an ooth in that tree, I immediately offered to take them. She'd shooed most of them outside, unfortunately, but we wound up with two Chinese mantid nymphs.

My daughter, 6, named them Penelope and Priscilla and they were an absolute delight to keep. Obviously we couldn't mate them, and after Priscilla passed away due to a mismolt, I started thinking about getting new mantids.

I'm wary about buying an ooth from some stranger on ebay, without any way to know if they are legitimate, so I started researching - which brought me here. I've been lurking and reading, learning about some other types of mantids, and hope to purchase some in the very near future.