Well it’s been almost 2 weeks with no praying mantis
evidence at all. The egg cases appear to
have all hatched, and they seem to have all run off. My girlfriend found a lone healthy-looking mantis on some cilantro plants that we have and it was kind enough to pose long enough
for me to get a few shots. Noticeably
bigger, as expected, but also much greener than the young ones we observed. There has been a noticeable reduction in the bugs in our garden, but the reasons are unclear as the garden-eating bugs seemed to have just about disappeared way before the mantises were hatched, so it is unclear at this point.
My girlfriend has been integral in this whole mantis project
and she called me while I was out to say they were all in the pool and she was
saving them as fast as she could. Well, she
pulled about 20 of them out of the pool and totally saved them before I could
get home and close the pool cover. After
that, I saw that they all seemed to be emigrating, heading West, directly
toward the pool, and were climbing over the cover, and on to greener pastures apparently.
(05/29/11) They were really cheap and took about 2 weeks to hatch, but
with our Texas sun and it being a hot year and all, I’m afraid not all that
were supposed to hatch, made it. We only
had about 50 or 60 come out from an advertised 150-600 possible. We kept them in the shade and sprayed them
with a little water from time to time.
Here are the new instars:
(This is from February) OK, another encounter, this time inside the house. Lumbering along in my hall, and there are
children in the house with their rooms just a few feet away. Sorry to say, I overreacted, possibly, and
dispatched it. No photo this time. RIP