OOh, most cool thing, Aggie! I buy the ootheca (egg sac), place it in one of my big bug containers, and just wait! I do this at school with my Kindergartners and it is an awesome thing. Teaches them a lot about PATIENCE because it takes forever for the little nymphs to hatch but when they do...woo-hoo! Around 150+ come out of one ootheca and it is an awesome sight to behold, for sure. So, 'raise them' isn't quite the correct term, I should use here. ;P I give each child several to take home and place in their gardens. I've had kids come back to give me reports of how large their Praying Mantids have grown (or if theirs has died), and whether they've observed them catch and eat any bugs. I've also taught them WHERE to place the insectivores so as not to have them eat any butterflies! We discuss the eating habits as well as 'preying' habits as well. It is a fun lesson for the kids and as you know, kids LOVE bugs anyway. My thinking and reason is this: I feel it is important to teach a LOT of science to children and science has really been taken out of the schools nowadays (at least in California). Gardening is an enjoyable and relaxing hobby as well as way to have your home look nice. Integrating some knowledge about insects and gardening into the school curriculum together with lifecycles (I also teach about plant lifecycles) gets the children to go home and start thinking about their OWN HOMES as well as the community and making the community a nicer place to live for the people and 'wildlife.' Knowledge about insects helps to make them aware of what is a 'good' vs. 'bad' bug (biters vs. non-biters, poisonous vs. non-poisonous, beneficial...) and at the same time, we end up with, hopefully, LESS pesticides being used in the communities and more of the beneficial insects (placed in the areas where there aren't any butterflies, of course!). I always bring home all the extra Praying Mantids for my front yard. :)

A friend of mine restored and maintains a prairie. Last night he did a presentation at a natural history meeting about Monarch butterflies, at which he showed a whole tray of recently dismembered butterfly wings due to Chinese mantis predation, mainly Monarchs. Monarchs have to migrate thousands of miles and along the way face numerous perils. With Monarchs and other butterflies in steep decline, my friend strongly feels import and sales of Chinese mantises should be banned. These mantises are not part of nature any more than your cat or dog. Chinese mantises are invasive non-native insects that not only kill butterflies, but also our smaller, less aggressive native mantises, and hummingbirds, too. There is no reason to spare Chinese mantises in your garden or yard. Hopefully one day sale and import of these aggressive predators will be banned. In the meantime, do our native butterflies and other creatures a favor and please exterminate any Chinese mantises you find.

Jean, the invasive Chinese mantids, now very common in the States, seem to be the usual culprit of the hummingbird murders. They are even responsible for the decline of our native mantis species. Upstate, the others have given you the reason for my dislike of mantids. If they would keep their crummy little claws off my butterflies, bees, wasps, assassin bugs, and ladybugs, I might stop evicting them. They are absolutely not welcome in my gardens.

She was very small, at least much smaller than I've ever seen. I think I read somewhere that the females have more ridges on their underside than males, and when I moved the tree for maintenance to powerwash my deck, I checked her out and I think it's female. I haven't seen her for a while now. She left shortly after that. Thanks for the reply!