Likebugs and Ryan, thanks a lot for the useful information, it truly does help clarify some things.
Ntsees, I forgot where exactly in Norcal Fresno is, but I do know my cousin who lives in Vacaville always finds S. limbata specimens in the late spring and during the summer. Where I'm from, Vallejo, I only find M. religiosa (years ago we used to find T. sinensis but they vanished). I also know M. religiosa occurs in Vacaville too. But the point is, that's the only place I've seen S. limbata and unfortunately it's always been one female found for me.
On a side note, it's interesting that I. oratoria occurs in Northern California. I know they can be found in Sacramento and as you said, Fresno, but when I brought my specimens from Nevada to Vallejo, it seemed to have had an affect on their development. The periods between molts greatly increased and they started dying off randomly. This isn't the first time I've experienced this with this species when taking them to the Bay Area, which has me wondering. I actually miss I. oratoria, now that I'm not in Nevada, their's no hope for me in going to find some and I don't know how they'll fare in this humidity and environment here.
tenoderaterror, They're not too similar to mantids, they're less active. Only thing they have in common are the claws, being generalist predators, and having incomplete metamorphosis Really what they do is sit on top of a plant (for me it was always goldenrod) and wait for something to land and they grab it. They're strike is pretty fast but unlike a mantid's, they don't rely on their claws to actually subdue the prey, they ingest the digestive enzymes and that ends the struggle fast. They're super easy to mate, I put males in with females and they literally just crawled onto the females with no problem at all. Not to mention I've found numerous mating pairs in the wild.
