Over the years, we have seen praying mantises in our backyard 3 or 4 times. This has convinced Quinn that he could go in the backyard and capture a praying mantis for a pet.
You know, everybody needs a pet praying mantis.
With no luck in capturing one, I went to our local nursery and got him this.
All together, 4 egg cases totaling 100 – 400 praying mantises. Yikes!
So we went out and got a terrarium that Quinn made into a home. He really wants to keep 2 of them as pets but they need to be fed live bugs. We\’ve agreed that he will let them all go and if one returns as an adult and he can capture it then he can keep it. Let\’s just hope he forgets that part.
The egg cases look a little bit like walnuts. They will hatch in 2 – 6 weeks once it starts to warm up.
Once they hatch we need to let them go or they will start eating each other. I\’ve threatened Quinn to within an inch of his life about taking the top of the terrarium inside the house once they hatch. I have this nightmare vision of 500 baby praying mantises let loose in our house.
The White House 