First time seeing a mantid

[Anleoflippy]

When was the first time you saw these Alien creatures,and what species is it and are you afraid of them when you saw it for the first time...

When I was just 7 years old I'm interested in Insects that is a carnivore and eat its prey alive, so when my pop came home from his farm, and he gave me a plastic bag, inside I saw a Tenodera fasciata, I thought it was a stick Insect but I notice there are Rows of sharp spikes on its Forelegs so I think its a predator and also I'm not scared of them when the first time I saw it, I even let it crawl on my face, then I saw a grasshopper and I wanted to see if the Mantis is a predator, so before I let the Mantis catch its Prey I barrow my mums old video cam and record the Mantis and the grasshopper, I look away for a second and the next thing I knew, the grasshopper is already in the claws of the Mantis.Then when I playback the video, I was like OOOOMMMMGGGG.The mantis catch its prey so fast I cant even see it, after then I let go of my Mantis because I dont know anything about how to keep them as pets, but now I know how... ^_^

So whats your story...???

 

[shorty]

I was at my aunt's house with my grandfather when I was quite young and there was a massive mantis crawling up the side of her house. I asked my grandfather what it was and he told me it was a praying mantis. It was huge, like five inches long, at least, so it had to have been a T. sinensis. I remember it was very green. I was amazed by it and wanted badly to catch it, but my grandpa said to be careful because they pinch. I never ended up picking it up. It's still the biggest mantis I have seen in person to this day.

 

[[email protected]]

It was a few years ago and i was out side with my brother and we were looking in the bushes and found our first mantis by accident now i am pretty sure it was the Florida bark, what a first mantis!!! We keep it for a couple weeks and named it cudao because it just destroyed bug we fed it. Finally we let him go i think it flew away.

 

[Rick]

About the time I was old enough to walk outdoors. Still the only insects I really care for.

 

[Zephyr]

It was at my grandpa's house.

We were walking on a nearby grass-covered hill when my dad said he saw something jump. After a few minutes of frantically hurrying through the grass he netted my first praying mantis. I'm pretty sure it was a male.

 

[DeadInTheBasement]

well as far as i can remember back my grandmother caught a female chinese mantid off of one of her flowers in Oct ina jar and brought it to my house and gave it to me. i was young and kept it as longas i could find grasshoppers and when the grasshoppers were gone it didnt last long :huh: i named it Anti-Manti B)

 

[The_Asa]

Maybe when I was 7 or 8. It was an adult female Chinese and I remember staring at it for hours...or some long measure of an 8 year old time span lol...watching it move.

 

[flybycat]

I was probably about 7 or 8. I saw one in my uncle's backyard in the San Fernando Valley, here in S. California. I was very excited to see it. I had seen them on a nature documentry on television before I saw my first live one. They showed them being born and the ootheca looked huge to me on television. I remember telling my uncle that their egg cases were the size of basketballs.

Marc

 

[bassist]

When I was around 5 or so I found a recently mated T. Sinensis that was eating the male I got her to climb into a cup that the science teacher gave at the school. She laid around six ootheca three hatched at the school and where released in the school garden and the other three I kept and hatched then since I was overrun I released a bunch in a few places around town sadly I haven't seen a mantis around here in years.

 

[kakistos]

Too bad there are no mantids in the wild in the Netherlands! So my first meeting with a mantis must be in some zoo or something, but I don't remember it. I do know that I at some point I knew I wanted one while I never really studied them or read online or something. Then I saw an online advertorial for mantids and I looked the caresheets up and bought them. P. paradoxa and P. wahlbergii where my first mantids!

I remember opening the post package and taking the little containers out the box. One was with an adult P. paradoxa female... I was so amazed and intrigued by her looks... pictures are nothing compared to that. But I did not dare to pick her up so I placed her in her terrarium and watched her slowly climb out of her little box onto a stick. My own alien! Later picking up was not a problem of course.

 

[Morpheus uk]

I`ant got a clue lol, my dad started me on exotics, ive been into wildlife and what not all my life, right since i was a lil tiddler with sea monkeys lol.

My dad kept going on about a big spiny bug he had once so i looked into it and thus got into stick insects ^^

Cant remember first seeing a mantis once.