blind_angel16
Member
Hi there. I'm Jordan, a teen from a small town in Iowa who just last week found something I was searching for all summer: a mantis. I had experience with mantids before, albeit not very much experience. A year ago I had two mantids, a brown mantis and a green mantis, both of the species Tenodera sinensis. One morning, I woke up to find only the green mantis in my cage. That wasn't the only tragedy to befall the mantids I had. Later, the green mantis who had eaten the brown suffered an injury while molting, permanently disfiguring its back legs. I decided to release it into the wild, since it was entirely my fault for the damage of each mantis.
A year later, I wanted a second chance at taking care of a mantis. I searched almost everyday. We live on a farm, so we had areas where grass and trees grew extremely tall; but even so, there was no sign of a mantis. It was early in the summer, so I thought maybe they weren't out yet. However, with fall coming sooner and sooner, I thought I'd never find one before school starts.
Last Thursday, I was helping my grandfather pull out some small trees out of the ditch in front of our house with the family tractor. In the last tree we pulled, I looked down and saw what I searched for all summer; I found a mantis. The first thought that went through my mind was, I'm not going to let it get away this time. Not today. I completely forgot about the tractor and my grandfather and chased after the mantis, hearing my grandfather on his tractor shouting behind me. I finally caught it and got it inside, and my sister put it inside of a jar I prepared in case I found a mantis. I went back to complete my work, with my grandpa bombarding me with questions about what I was going after and if I put it inside (a note to the reader: my grandfather does not like having creatures inside the house. It's surprising enough that he let us have three cats in our house, and I didn't know what he would say if I brought an insect inside). The mantis I found was the same species as the two I had before, a Tenodera sinensis, and I named her after Nikiesha, a very good friend of mine, but cut the name down to Niki. The picture with this Topic is one I took of her today.
TL;DR version: Name's Jordan. Had two mantids, but they died/were released. Found a new mantis the next year. Named her Niki. End.
Anyway, that's how I got my mantis. I'm still new at raising mantids, but I hope I will learn new things from people here at Mantid Forum and use what I learn to take care of my new pet and friend, Niki.
Edit: It turns out although I thought I was raising European Mantids, or Mantis religiosa, my mantids were in fact Chinese mantids, otherwise known as Tenodera sinensis. A big thank you to mantidsaresweet for letting me know.
A year later, I wanted a second chance at taking care of a mantis. I searched almost everyday. We live on a farm, so we had areas where grass and trees grew extremely tall; but even so, there was no sign of a mantis. It was early in the summer, so I thought maybe they weren't out yet. However, with fall coming sooner and sooner, I thought I'd never find one before school starts.
Last Thursday, I was helping my grandfather pull out some small trees out of the ditch in front of our house with the family tractor. In the last tree we pulled, I looked down and saw what I searched for all summer; I found a mantis. The first thought that went through my mind was, I'm not going to let it get away this time. Not today. I completely forgot about the tractor and my grandfather and chased after the mantis, hearing my grandfather on his tractor shouting behind me. I finally caught it and got it inside, and my sister put it inside of a jar I prepared in case I found a mantis. I went back to complete my work, with my grandpa bombarding me with questions about what I was going after and if I put it inside (a note to the reader: my grandfather does not like having creatures inside the house. It's surprising enough that he let us have three cats in our house, and I didn't know what he would say if I brought an insect inside). The mantis I found was the same species as the two I had before, a Tenodera sinensis, and I named her after Nikiesha, a very good friend of mine, but cut the name down to Niki. The picture with this Topic is one I took of her today.
TL;DR version: Name's Jordan. Had two mantids, but they died/were released. Found a new mantis the next year. Named her Niki. End.
Anyway, that's how I got my mantis. I'm still new at raising mantids, but I hope I will learn new things from people here at Mantid Forum and use what I learn to take care of my new pet and friend, Niki.
Edit: It turns out although I thought I was raising European Mantids, or Mantis religiosa, my mantids were in fact Chinese mantids, otherwise known as Tenodera sinensis. A big thank you to mantidsaresweet for letting me know.
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