SUPRISE!

[kmsgameboy]

I left work late this morning and was rushing out to the parking lot so I could get home. As I came to my car I nearly stepped on a large green and brown female chines mantid! I did a double take and sure enough there she was standing in the parking lot looking right back at me. I took out the little plastic "bug box" I keep in my car and scooped her up. What a wonderful suprise and sort of ironic seeing as I have a mantis decal on my car window...maybe she thought it was another mantis ready to mate. Anyway Share some of the ways mantids have suprised you!

 

[Idolofreak]

When I was little I had a female Carolina mantis. I didn't know she mated before I had her, and she suddenly laid like five or six ooths! They were all fertile, but I had no idea they were, so after I got out the cage for another mantis the next year, there was this "dusty" looking stuff on the bottom. My dad used the macro on the camera and the "dust" was actually 1000 or so dead nymphs! I was only seven, so I had no idea how to take care of an ooth or nymphs, so that explains why they died.

 

[Rick]

Almost all my mantis surprises involve ooths I had left out and they hatched. I was surprised a couple years ago when I found a species in the wild that I was not aware even lived around here.

 

[Malti]

my surprise is I still haven't found one in the wild :angry:

 

[killmoves]

my surprise is I still haven't found one in the wild :angry:

ditto

at least as an adult

 

[Malti]

ditto

at least as an adult

as a kid I saw much more than now, that I've been actively looking for them

 

[kmsgameboy]

Interesting Rick, what mantis species was it that you found?