California species?

[Anab1188]

Hello everyone, I was wondering which mantis species are native to southern california? My dad works at the port of Long Beach/L.A. and found a mantis on one of the containers. I was wondering if it is a stowaway? The container was coming from china. 

 

[LazarusMantid]

So there are two that I know for sure are in so-cal and that is the the California mantis, S. Californica, which is a native species and, surprise surprise, the Chinese mantis which is of course naturalized all over the US. I know this because my mother in law saw a female S. Californica in her backyard a few days ago and I just caught a little male chinese like an hour ago. My first wild caught mantis btw.

So in answer to your question,  more than likely it wasn't a stowaway.  Mantises are pretty delicate. But if it was a Chinese it's possible. A S. Californica though is native so it's not a stowaway. 

 

[CosbyArt]

In reality there have been many various species occasionally found in California by other forum members, and some have are not native/naturalized anywhere in the US. That said if you found one from a imported container it could likely be from China as it does happen occasionally. Here is a real story of a mantis that was packaged with sage in Israel and sold in a grocery store in a sealed bag in the UK and the mantis promptly walked out of the bag when opened - here is the original news link and another too.

If you could post a photo of the mantis, then someone could make a proper ID of the species you found.

 

[Anab1188]

That is pretty funny. I will try to post a picture of it soon. He/she is very shy