I live in Indiana, in a house with a crawl space brimming with spiders. Two nights ago I noticed a mantid and nabbed it so my child could see one. After I showed it to her in the morning we were preparing to release it and it dawned on me that it could keep both the spiders and insects in check in the crawl space, so I released it there. Then I thought it might not be a bad idea to obtain some more mantids and put them in the crawl. Is this a bad idea? Will they eventually eat all of the other creatures and then cannibalize each other? Is an Indiana crawl space too cold in winter for a mantid to survive? If it's a good idea, how many mantids could a 30 x 60 x 4 space support? Several? Dozens?
In my crawl space. Good idea?
- Thread starter nicmart
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Hmmm, thanks.What if I put some full-spectrum fluorescent lights in the crawl space, leaving them on all the time?
I think you would be wasting your time and your electricity. A spider or some other creepy crawly that lives in a place like that would eventually eat the mantis.
xenuwantsyou
Well-known member
Well, I typically welcome spiders in my home, as they get rid of pests a lot better than mantids. My advice would be to leave the spiders and let the mantid loose outside.
