Mantids Mantids Everywhere

Ever since I was a child, I have loved praying mantids. As some of you may know, I previously raised exotic mantids as a hobby. Unfortunately, the amount of time this hobby required was so great, that I eventually had to give it up in exchange for gardening. While that was a challenge, it was also a huge blessing. Raising mantids was often a headache and the time required was not worth the benefits. Gardening, on the other hand has been much more rewarding for me and it is much easier to keep seeds alive than insects that require other live insects in order to survive.

Perhaps because of my obsession with mantids, I tend to find them everywhere. To prove the point, here are some pictures of when I found mantids or mantid eggs in my garden, at a local park, on a hike, when visiting a local farm, while on a plane and while visiting family in Colorado.

Here is a mantid egg case I found while cleaning up cucamelons in one of my gardens.

While I was taking a walk at our park in September, I found this mature girl who had fallen from a tree. I made sure to put her in a safe place with plenty of flowers.

On another occasion during a hike with the family I found this ootheca, which I am pretty sure is an ootheca of a ground mantid. It was much smaller than the similar Mediterranean Mantid.

A local farmer agreed to grow out some of my cucumbers. On the way into his farm I found this mantid on his gate keypad.

On yet another occasion, while sitting on a plane that was getting ready to take off, I noticed a mantid on one of the wings. He did a good job of hanging on to the wing for while the airplane moved to the runway, but he wisely decided to leave before traveling too far from home.

Finally, here is a beautiful mottled specimen I found on a currant bush at my in-laws home in Colorado.