Our Praying Mantises Are All Free

 Mantis Collage

The kids and I have raised caterpillars into butterflies and larvae into ladybugs but we had never watched a praying mantis egg case hatch, until now!  I ordered an Insect Lore Praying Mantis Egg Hatching Kit a few months ago and it has been so fun to watch these truly fascinating insects.

 

 Inside our box!

One egg case was suppose to contain 75-200 baby mantises.  I think our case had around 150 so this was accurate for us.  Our Kit came with a live praying mantis egg case, hatching plant egg case holder, praying mantis life cycle stages, pop up port-a-bug habitat, and a praying mantis egg case quick guide.  We set up our case on March 20th.  The mantis babies were to emerge anywhere from 3-10 weeks.  Our mantis babies started emerging from the egg case on April 20th, so exactly one month later.

Our egg case upon arrival

E checking it out

Transferring our egg case

Now on the hatching plant egg case holder

Now in the pop up port-a-bug habitat

It was so fun to see the baby mantises emerge.  We released most of them within the first few days but we kept a few and fed them live insects that I caught from our yard for a week.  It was super neat to watch them eat.

Our mantis babies emerging

 A closer view

 A with a baby mantis on a leaf

 You can see how small they are when they emerge.

A baby mantis eating

Another view

 Freeing our mantis babies

More babies

F with a mantis baby on a leaf.

F loved his baby mantis.  He would tell everyone that they won't hurt you.

I loved watching them turn their heads.

Even Stevie dog got in on the mantis fun.  Here you can see a baby on his back.

D looking up information about praying mantis.

 Our actual egg case (after hatching) next to the praying mantis life cycle stages egg case.

 Up-close

We had such a great experience with our mantis babies.  Insect Lore Praying Mantis egg cases are available now until the end of June, while supplies last if you want to get in on the fun.