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Interesting news, the female just laid an ooth outside today! We’ve had unusually high temps in the 50’s and I guess  she had enough nutrition to produce one. 

I find old wild mantids that usually don’t have too long to live and help them by feeding them inside, but I don’t have space to set up insect live food for only a few weeks because after I won’t need them. That’s why I use baby food

Is there such a thing sold as powdered insects? Reason I ask, is injured or old mantids that can’t hunt properly I find love to eat chicken or Turkey baby food. But if they made powdered insects you could just add water and make an instant insect paste to feed them instead.

This discovery is interesting, but at the same time brings  up a  sensitive topic. Many put mantises in cold temps to humanely euthanize, but seeing how they can bounce back after periods of cold temps, are we killing live mantids and tossing them out unknowingly? Is it possible for wild...

I’m not sure, I see the eyes go dark until it warms up. Maybe like an extreme slow metabolism?

Can Chinese and European mantis females fly or glide a good distance, say enough to get across a street?

I’ve gotten them in a small cardboard box  package with no heat pack but in something so they don’t get bashed against the box during shipping, but mine we mostly Chinese ooths. 

I found a Chinese mantis female outside a month ago solid and not moving, I thought it was dead. I placed it under a shrub and checked on it next day and it was alive in a shrub! I fed it Turkey baby food, and for a month since it’s still outside alive! It moves into direct sunlight to warm up...

It’s not the cold I was concerned about, it’s being wrapped in plastic and bubble wrap for two months in the package, and Lack of oxygen 

Chinese mantis 

One is dark brown but the other two look ok. I wasn’t sure if bubble wrap doesn’t allow oxygen in and suffocated the embryos 

I had mantis ooths lost in the mail for two months almost during cold weather so they stayed dormant. The shipper had them in an envelope wrapped in bubble wrap. 🤦‍♂️ Would this kill the eggs inside?

But how does that allow them to spread state to state? Maybe from trees and plants that get cut?

Don’t hatchlings use silk to ‘balloon’ in the wind, similar to some spiders and caterpillars, that would allow them to spread quickly 

No that’s not what I meant. How do mantid populations spread in distance to new areas if the females can’t fly? 

I was always wondering this, if females can’t fly how do mantids spread in areas, like areas surrounded by roads?

So there’s no way to tell the adults apart? I thought each had a different colored spot between the grabbing arms on the chest?

I never said I want to breed them, they occur in the wild where I live and I was curious since they are so closely related if cross breeding is possible, and if it is would the hybrid offspring and Ootheca look any different than the parents?   Also I would like a way to ID the adults, not the...

Tenodera sinensis, Tenodera aridifolia, Tenodera angustipennis. If they can do the hybrids and Ootheca look different? Also how can I tell the 3 apart side by side they look so similar!

I have a few Luna moth cocoons that never attached properly to branches, is it safe to hot glue them to a new stick, and how do I position it?