What do your friends and family think?

[steeve]

So, we all love our mantises, but what do your friends, family, significant others, and coworkers think of your hobby? Share some stories, if you have any!

I post a lot of my mantids on my social media and my coworkers absolutely love them. They'll ask me for updates about them at work and one of my friends decided to get her own, which is pretty neat to see! Even the ones who hate bugs admitted they watch my insect snapchat stories. 

Really wanted to share this little anecdote though: one of my wonderful coworkers was getting some coffee and saw a mantis 'attacking' someone and decided to capture it in a carryout container. Then she drove 30 minutes just to deliver it to me, because "you'll give it a good home!" The mantis she brought me is a gorgeous 4.5 inch chinese female, very happily living on a houseplant at the moment! Aforementioned coworker is so sweet and regularly asks me about how her gift is doing... My dad particularly loves this mantis, he affectionately nicknamed her "Boris" and feeds her bugs every morning after returning her to the designated Mantis Plant.

Another similar story is two more of my awesome coworkers saw a pretty mantis on a customer's car and ran outside to search the bushes for it... One of them captured it in a Starbucks cup and brought it to me, turned out to be a 3.5 inch lime green chinese female! I named her Caffe Misto on account of what was on the cup, but my dad took the Russian approach and named her "Vasiliy". I plan to release both of them in my yard soon, here's hoping there's some males out there and next year I'll see some babies!  ^_^

 

[Aquaticcreature]

My mother is terrified by bugs, but she loves my mantis'. She won't touch them or let me get near her with them, but she loves looking at them in the cages. My aunt is also fascinated with them.

My brothers and dad think it's a bit wierd though. They only like the fact that I am selling them. They think they look cool, but I can tell they are humoring me when I talk to them about my bugs. Most of my family and friends think bugs are creepy and don't understand how I can like them so much. Not to say they disscourage me from keeping them, but they don't really offer encouragement either. My mother and aunt are the only ones who really show an interest in my hobby. I'm not trying to sound depressing, I have learned to do my hobbies for myself and to not care what anyone else says. 

 

[SpaceWolf]

My gf used to hate all bugs, but recently she got curious about them and now thinks they are 'kinda' cute, my mother, brother and sister find them cool also. My father doesn't really care about them. People often wonder why I have so much interest in building vivariums with actual 'ecosystems', they are like what is so fun about it. I dunno I've always been a huge fan of nature and now it's like I have a tiny box of nature always next to me. Also, imo mantids are so different as to all other insects I've ever seen before, their anatimy is so astonishing. How their legs work and how they move. 

 

[Ocelotbren]

My husband is passively interested.  He does think it's kinda cool to watch them hunt or get a closeup of their face when they're eating or cleaning themselves and that sort of thing, but that's about as far as it goes.  My family enjoys my pictures and videos and think they're interesting, but again, that's about as far as it goes for them too.

 

[Connor]

Family seems to think they are interesting and cool, and when I talk about them they seem to listen(probably just humoring me haha). Other than family I haven't let other people know... I've only been in the hobby for a month and I'm still in high school so not really looking to share it with my whole school...

 

[Jessie]

My mom will babysit them when I am out of town, mostly when I am visiting my aunt, she calls them he grand sticks haha. She will be the one to take them if something happens to me, my mom makes a joke saying this will prob be the closet thing she gets to getting grandchildren. Which she prob isn't wrong on account I really don't want human kids.

 

[Carnival Glass]

I rescued my current mantis by placing it in a (clean) travel mug. On my way home to the train, I called my partner and was like "you're gonna think I'm crazy, but guess what I'm bringing home"! She loves the mantis though, always offering to help feed her and takes pics of her. While on the train, my coworker and a conductor both asked what I was carrying and now they always ask for mantis updates.  ^_^
My actual related family though? Not very supportive to say the least.  <_<

 

[Serle]

My partner Sylvia really has taken to all my mantids she calls the Blepharopsis rock creatures................. S

 

[Connor]

My partner Sylvia really has taken to all my mantids she calls the Blepharopsis rock creatures................. S

Haha they do look like little rocks! My parents call them little devils... I guess their name suits them!

 

[OmniXVII]

Everyone I have shown my mantis to have found her interesting.

They ask me, "why a mantis?"

I usually just say, "because I think they're cool," and leave it at that.

 

[GingerC]

My mom is really supportive and encouraging, but my dad endlessly reminds me of how expensive it is to buy the correct items for my pets and how it shows a lack of ingenuity every time I go to the pet store... and then he goes on to brag to his friends that I have a mantis and a scorpion in my room, lol. To be fair, I build a lot of my own terrarium and such, and it is in no way unreasonable to buy a pair of tweezers or a bag of sphagnum moss now and then. This extends beyond mantises; I don't have a mantis at the moment (I'm suffering) but my entire menagerie wouldn't have happened if I hadn't ever gotten a mantis.

My siblings don't really care much about my pets, but they did love to handle the mantis when I brought him out and every member of the family is completely enamored by my crestie. When asked why I love bugs and reptiles so much, my usual response is that filling my room with mammals is just completely unsustainable, and also that mantises are one of the most enjoyable animals to care for, ever.

 

[JettyDoor]

My family were always supportive of whatever creature I came home with. We had everything from tarantulas (pink toe and Brazilian Black) to a caiman (though that one was my sister's fault). We all pretty much do wildlife and exotic animal rehab as a hobby, and we're kind of the "Oh I found this random strange creature; I'll bring it to them" recipients. Wound up with leopard geckos because someone dumped them in a Happy Meal box in a parking lot and a coworker found them. My brother brought home a baby ball python he found swimming in the lake while he was fishing - in Northern Minnesota. When my partner and I first started dating, I warned him that there'd be critters. He simply asked that they be kept to a reasonable amount. When we moved in together, I reminded him that eventually he'd come home to a bathroom full of possums, raccoons, squirrels, bats, or something. His response was, "As long as you don't keep them all." His only insect request was no more spiders and no more scorpions, so for now I have the sticks and am looking into mantises as longer-term pets than the ones we hatch every year for the garden. 

 

[callisto9]

My SO and I got into this together on a whim. I tend to go a bit more into my short-term hobbies than he does (ie: get a free bug, buy a $45 enclosure). My mom regularly rolls her eyes at my "obsessions", but many of my friends support my new-found hobby.

 

[T.C.]

I keep alot of strange stuff, but most people are rather amazed by my mantids.

 

[MandellaMandy123]

Fun fact: I brought an orchid mantid to university today for a presentation, and she was super popular with my friends and classmates, and even my professors! I think people really tend to like mantids overall. Everyone wanted to hold her and take pictures of her.

Outside of that, most of my friends think they are pretty neat. I've been posting mantid antics on my snapchat story a lot lately and people keep commenting for me to post them more haha. And my mom is pretty cool with it too. Considering she used to let me have mantid containers all over the dining room table, I can't complain. 

 

[CollinR]

When I started the hobby at the beginning of College, my family thought it was pretty out there. After my second generation of Mantids, my family has actually gotten pretty attached to them. My mother's favorite is my L8 Brunneria Borealis named Noelle that I thankfully raised successfully from L1 Nymph. My mother likes to talk to and hold Noelle sometimes and usually just calls her 'Stick' (Which is a big deal because she's always hated bugs, especially arachnids). She admitted she actually fell in love with Noelle which is pretty neat. Noelle actually climbed onto my Stepfather's head while he was working out by her plant which was pretty hilarious. She seems to like him a lot because she always reaches out for him when he walks near her plant but never reaches out for anyone else when they approach her plant (even me!) I have an adult female Ghost that lives on a cotton plant at her house that rarely, if ever moves (They've spread to my Mother's house). Noelle lives on a tall grass plant in the living room and seems to really love it. My grandparents don't seem to mind them or pay much attention to them.

Sometimes I take one or two of my Mantids to work with me (Cleff and Piper - Male/Female Hierodula Majusculas or Vance - Male Rhombodera Extensicollis) to perch on their fake tomato plants while I work at the register counter and 98% of customers absolutely love them and ask all kinds of questions about them, not to mention taking pictures of them which is pretty neat. They always seem so shocked and surprised that they're my pets but most of them think it's great. I've had a very slim minority of people recoil in disgust about being afraid of them. To each his own, I guess! I love bringing them along with me to work though. Makes the day go by faster and people love seeing them and watching them. Even my College Sociology Professor loves them and has me bring one to class sometimes as a 'guest' and has to announce at the beginning of class "We have a guest!".  The students seem to love them.

It was neat because I actually gave a PowerPoint presentation on Mantids and Mantid keeping in my Speech class and brought my L6 at the time (now L7) Giant Rainforest Female that I named Piper to show everyone and after the presentation they all wanted to ask questions about her and look at her. Sadly it seems the only thing the average person knows about Mantids is the Deadly Mating which they bring up almost every time they see my Mantids. They will say something along the lines of ''Don't those eat their mates?!'' or ''Doesn't the female eat the male" and I can't help but think to myself -is that all anyone knows/thinks about them-.

A neat thing is that Cleff and Vance will watch the people walk in and out of the store and turn their heads while Piper just sits there not caring about the movement. They really do seem to have their own personalities! Sometimes I have to remind myself they’re just insects but they seem to have a very high level intelligence and situational awareness.

Piper, my Female L7 Majuscula

 

[Peter Clausen]

Great topic!

I'm 42. I was interested in bugs as soon as I could go out in the backyard. My grandma used to bring bugs here to Oregon from her yard in Texas for my dead insect collection. The diversity blew my mind. My parents were always supportive. My dad built me cases for my dead insect collections. They hung on the wall in the house. My mother helped me raise over 100 species of phasmids (in their basement even after I'd moved out) when I first got into the online hobby back in 1997. I no longer keep phasmids but that early social networking experience was the beginning of Bugsincyberspace.com

My kids grew up around bugs, and my wife was kind enough to quit her job 3 or so years ago to help me build and run the biz. We have a lot of fun everyday with Jessica who works for us. Wanna see more? Check out our daily posts on Instagram @bugsincyberspace

And now I just hang out with bug people all the time, mostly in the online sphere. My kinda people!

 

[callisto9]

^^^ I love that story, Peter! I've definitely spent a lot of time on your site.

 

[Alabastra]

My friends are all animal folks and even those who may not particularly 'get' mantises share an appreciation for animals in general. I've had hermit crabs for over twenty years, and a looong list of herps and reptiles so by now they are pretty well accustom to my passion for the small ones as well as the large. My daughters seem to love the little buggers as much as I do, especially my youngest. She has grown very attached to them and has a mantis of her own now. My husband takes it all with his usual good humor and willingness for the never-ending list of things I need built for them. So far, he maintains that the line is drawn at spiders though. Every time I show him a picture of a cute spider he tells me to get another mantis! (I could so take advantage... ^____^)
 
The real question is "What do the IN-LAWS THINK?" :lol: