Native Species to WA, USA

[happy1892]

Oh, wow. You have Chinese mantises common in Oregon?

This is the OSU article you meant? It does not look trustworthy:

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/19820/ec1605.pdf

Some pics of S. californica from Oregon would be nice, or an entomologist who actually identified them correctly.

 

[Soir_Noir]

Yes, that article. +in my area yes, lots of Chinese; we're on the edge where civilization starts to end and farms begin to start. +Even the dedicated caresheet on Californica on this forum says they may range as far as Oregon. If anyone has any solid info on a more native species here I'd love to hear.. I certainly haven't found a ton of info regarding species in Oregon. So far the only one that seems solid is Stagmomantis Californica, and then speculations and loose info regarding Litaneutria Minor and Stagmomantis Limbata being a maybe. I've lived in this area my whole life and never seen any outdoors here that weren't Chinese.. kinda bothers me that the only species I've ever seen here, while considered naturalized, is technically invasive.

 

[happy1892]

Yes, that article. +in my area yes, lots of Chinese; we're on the edge where civilization starts to end and farms begin to start. +Even the dedicated caresheet on Californica on this forum says they may range as far as Oregon. If anyone has any solid info on a more native species here I'd love to hear.. I certainly haven't found a ton of info regarding species in Oregon. So far the only one that seems solid is Stagmomantis Californica, and then speculations and loose info regarding Litaneutria Minor and Stagmomantis Limbata being a maybe. I've lived in this area my whole life and never seen any outdoors here that weren't Chinese.. kinda bothers me that the only species I've ever seen here, while considered naturalized, is technically invasive.

Solid info? For all I know those people who wrote that article misidentified the Mantis religiosa as Stagmomantis californica. :clown: "For example, the California Mantis is green and looks like a leaf". Just a hint. Sounds like S. limbata (for adult females they are stocky, have wide wings, the green form has very obvious leaf like white colored veins on their fore wings, and are often green morph? From pictures and videos I have seen online.). S. californica I thought were more often brown, but green may be common, too. And they don't mention Mantis religiosa anywhere in the article. Except for maybe "They are found in North America, southern Europe, and southern Africa." which kind of sounds like the range listed commonly (?) for Mantis religiosa... or maybe not. The people who wrote that article might not have even known about Mantis religiosa which would have made it much more likely they would misidentify the M. religiosa they found in Oregon as S. californica, but that does sound unlikely. Anything is possible... The size though does sound more like Stagmomantis "50-65mm from wing tip to head". S. limbata are maybe about that size (they are the largest of the three common Stagmomantis species, Stagmomantis floridensis is the largest one at least here in the US). Can S. californica be that big, too? Some of the information in that article may be from other sources other than the people who wrote it in Oregon who were studying the mantises in their area (were they?).

You should do a more extensive search throughout the year. You might run into some species of mantises other than the Chinese mantis. Wow, you are kind of far north in Oregon, close to Washington State, and a bit away from the coast.

 

[Soir_Noir]

I originally thought limbata but previous commenters in thread said they don't come this far -_-" and while I have my hobby critters I don't have much experience with wild mantids so I was trying to gather intel here (this thread+forum as so far this is the most comprehensive group of mantis people I've found). I rarely see mantids here and when I do they're Chinese, which I figure because we're near the farms and a feed store that sells chinese ooth. Whatever mantids used to be in this particular area don't seem to be around anymore and that is what is bugging me (no pun intended). Hence trying to figure what in general would be a species native to Oregon (and subsequently my area) who would thrive here as I'd like to see something native instead of Chinese.. except nobody seems to know for sure what would be native here. Literally lived in this particular area my entire life and not seen any but Chinese outside, I don't know how much more extensive of a search you could do aside from investigating other areas further away, which kind of defeats the entire point of trying to find a native species in my own area. +again I originally saw some stuff saying limbata ranged this far but previous commenters said they don't, while Californica seems somewhat agreed upon as the most likely choice given Oregon's close proximity. *sighs*

 

[Soir_Noir]

I put the question on my FB to all my Oregon friends, if they've ever seen a mantis in the general area that wasn't Chinese. So far I've only had one friend reply with one sighting and he has seen one Californica mantis (I sent him pix and asked him to choose the one that matched) near the Deschutes river, said he saw it this last August. That is a start!

 

[happy1892]

I put the question on my FB to all my Oregon friends, if they've ever seen a mantis in the general area that wasn't Chinese. So far I've only had one friend reply with one sighting and he has seen one Californica mantis (I sent him pix and asked him to choose the one that matched) near the Deschutes river, said he saw it this last August. That is a start!

Whoa! Very nice. I doubted it since I just see pictures of S. californica from southern part of California (but I have not searched much on the internet).

I thought you said the only mantids in your area you've seen were the T. sinensis. What were the other mantids you used to see in your area?

Did you search parks and different types of habitat? The T. sinensis like grassy areas, and can be extremely common like here in NC.

 

[Soir_Noir]

I have only seen Chinese outside here, as I stated multiple times. Twas my friend who saw a Californica and by the Deschutes river, which isn't in my immediate area but close enough. It is very grassy and fairly moist here thru most of the year, I'm only 15 minutes car ride away from the Columbia River Gorge and everything is very green. I've gone hiking in the gorge (several times, lived here my whole life) and even on the most undisturbed trails not seen a mantis other than Chinese.

 

[happy1892]

You don't see any Mantis religiosa? I always thought those were common all across the west coast... I guess T. sinensis is pushing them out now.

 

[Soir_Noir]

I personally don't, not here anyways.

 

[Soir_Noir]

Today I was talking to a friend of our family and he showed me a couple of pictures of a mantis he saw in Corvallis (which is in Oregon but about a 2 hour drive from where I am+slightly different in climate etc.). The mantis looks to me to be a European, so we can add that to the list of critters seen in the state. Not a ton of help seeing as that isn't technically native, but does confirm that they're around.

 

[Extrememantid]

Yeah I'd be surprised if Mantis religiosa wasn't there haha, they're all over southern BC.

 

[happy1892]

You can see sightings of Mantis religiosa in the US on bugguide (I glanced through all their photos, and couldn't find one misidentified):

http://bugguide.net/node/view/22947/data

 

[Soir_Noir]

I find it kind of weird they're supposedly all around, yet I still have yet to see European mantids in my immediate area. Further out yes, but here no.. but our climate is a tad different right in this particular spot, maybe they don't like it so wet+cold+windy.