Got in one of "those" packages yesterday!

And their new house, replacing their tall deli cup.

That's cool, was out to pick up some food for these guys and when I got back, the very green one was just finishing up a successful molt to L5. Finally starting to really look like a praying mantis!

I'll have to try and get pictures tomorrow, once they've all reduced the cricket population now in the tank some. Got one of the new employees at the store to get me my crickets (I hate crickets! One large downside to mantids) and that's usually the best way to get them. They aren't experienced at catching the right number asked for and it's better to be over than under, so they tend to give you more. I paid for 12 and got about 20-25 this time.

They are so cool and such teeny little mantids! Will they stay small as adults?

They get fairly big but they have a long sub adult stage between L6 and L7, where they'll be on the smaller side for a mantis for quite awhile.

This picture is actually of the two adult females who produced my current babies. Kind of shows their adult size. Picture taken by Table Rock Reptiles.

Took some more pictures over the last few days.

Oh wow. They are amazing!

One of the remaining 4 mantids molted into an adult a few days ago, so I took some pictures of all of them. Got 3 greens and a light brown one, I believe 3 females and 1 male, though I'm not sure about that.

SO COOL !


We bought a praying mantis at a show last year but it only lived about a month. It ate and was doubling it's size every week. We went to feed it and it was dead.

They look so much like crumpled leaves it's hard to see their parts. They are amazing!