Christmas Plans

Curiosity · Jul 27, 2020

Is there any chance my European mantises, which were born wild at a time I can't verify, could live until Christmas? One of my smaller dreams is to celebrate Christmas someday with a mantis that is still at least respirating. (I still have the bodies of last year's mantids, but they're not very good company.)

MantisGirl13 · Jul 27, 2020

It depends on how old they are right now.

- MantisGirl13

Mystymantis · Jul 28, 2020

I have had mantises alive at Christmas and way past that even. My Chinese mantises that hatch in the spring usually make it to Christmas and even past Christmas. If you have some female mantises there is a decent chance a few will make it to Christmas and beyond depending on when they hatched of course. Female mantises live longer then males.

Curiosity · Jul 28, 2020

I don't really know how old they are. . . I have one European who's almost an adult, one who's half her size (1 1/4 inch), and a couple of slightly-less-than-an-inch-long nymphs I think might be Carolinas. Most of them are female. How would that fit into the math?

hysteresis · Jul 28, 2020

Curiosity said:
Is there any chance my European mantises, which were born wild at a time I can't verify, could live until Christmas? One of my smaller dreams is to celebrate Christmas someday with a mantis that is still at least respirating. (I still have the bodies of last year's mantids, but they're not very good company.)

Females deffo. Males, naww.