omg... What IS That Thing?

My first thought when I ran across this odd looking bug was OMG. It scared the living daylights out of me... obviously I'm not a bug person. But, it didn't seem threatening, it was just sitting on one of my roses minding it's own business, so I got interested and started to watch it. What is really strange is that it seemed as interested in me as I was in it! It just sat there with it's little hands in prayer position and turned it's head and sat pefectly still... staring at me.

Ok... now I'm curious. So off I go to hit the net and find out more about praying mantis. These odd looking bugs are quite interesting! They don't bite, they sit around and munch on other annoying bugs, they can turn their heads almost 180 degrees, they can catch a bug faster than the human eye can see, they make interesting pets (although I had no intention of capturing one), and they're a great way to clear your garden and/or yard of annoying bugs without using pesticides!

I learned alot about them so when I ran across a website that had praying mantis 'eggs' for sale, I laughed. Then I remembered I have a friend I work with and her birthday was coming upat the end of March and I hadn't purchased a gift yet. So, I ordered 3 egg cases (each one contains 100-400 eggs) and trotted down to the local gift shop and found this  yellow metal chicken with a handle and a lid.

About a week later, here comes this little package with the 3 egg cases in it. I took the little bottle, and put Easter grass inside the chicken and nestled the jar inside, wrapped it up and I was set. A gift nobody in this lifetime would ever expect to receive! Boy, was she surprised!!! She opened it up, saw the chicken (which was goofy looking to begin with) and started laughing, but the look of complete shock was when she opened up the little lid and inside is this jar of 3 spongy looking things.

Once the shock wore off, we decided to put the egg sacks on the box elder bushes we have in front of our office and wait for them to hatch and watch them grow! We attached each egg to the lower branch of a bush with some copper wire we found in our office... and waited. And waited... and waited! Didn't look like anything was going to happen. We aren't bug experts by any means but we didn't lose hope. Lo and behold, around the first week in May, we went out and there were little tiny praying mantis bugs all over the bushes. Yes, even at only a couple days old, they were tiny but we could tell exactly what they were. Woohoo... she had babies!

Every day, there we were, out in front of our office with our heads in the bushes looking for the babies. Now I'm sure this looked comical from all the other businesses who have windows that overlooked these bushes but we were so intent on watching our little ones that we really didn't care. What we were worried about was they wouldn't have enough to eat and feed on each other but my mid summer we still had lots of them sunning themselves and munching on flies, crickets, mosquitoes and an occasional moth. Praying mantis cannot fly until they're fully grown so they stay fairly close to wherever the egg sack is put and as they got bigger, we found out that they are all not the same color. Some were green, some were brownish green, some were green with reddish necks and one had yellow down it's back. So of course, we named them... and watched in delight as they got bigger each week and got wings. We were actually hoping that they would lay eggs so we'd have a new crop to watch next year, but alas, we got to watch them grow until they could fly and then we'd see them all over the business park, but no eggs.

The sad thing about praying mantis is that they only have about a 7 month life span. They hatch once the weather gets around 70, they mate when fully grown (when they get wings), often eat the head off their mate, and then die about two weeks after the female  lays her eggs. So sad for such in intriguing little bug.

I guess I'll have to order 3 more egg sacks this March so we have something to entertain ourselves with during our breaks at work! If you happen to run across one, don't kill it or spray it with pesticides. They're actually beneficial to have in your yard, and they're really fun to watch!