I just found a praying mantis. A little help?

Question

I was literally typing and turn my head because something was in the corner of my eye....a praying mantis was on my shoulder just looking at me with his/her head tilted.

I love pets, and am very imformed about dogs, cats, rodents, snakes, chameleons, and certain types of fish.

Still after taking a few videos on my phone I gently put it in a jar and placed him/her on a large plan in our backyard.

Should I leave it there? Is it too exposed to birds?

I'd love to keep it but my rule has always been never to keep a pet if I haven't mastered the basics and some advance care for it.

Answer 1

Well if you're living in Connecticut, I'd advise you to let the state-bug go, otherwise you could inadvertently break the law (by killing it).  Mantises are very peculiar insects, I've experienced several encounters and they always have stared directly back at me and I remember each one.  After one staring contest in the sumer of 1989 the insect flew right onto my shoulder from an 8-ft. distance!  I personally think that you should let it go, unless you plan on feeding it honey-bees, crickets, small mice or small birds (because this is what they eat in the wild).  If you have a garden perhaps you could leave her there.  You never know, she may like the variety of pests and you could visit on the weekends.

Answer 2

Leave him on the plant.

If you found it on your shoulder, I'm guessing that it's an adult, and it will fly away if it wants to.

If it's a juvenile, it'll crawl into the shade if it wants to.

My brother used to half-swat flies, then convey them to the praying mantis with tweezers (so it wouldn't strike his hand).

Answer 3

It'll be fine, just leave it there... they're very intelligent little things.  I love how they watch you!

Answer 4

My experience is limited to mantises found in northern California's inland valleys. I've kept both the native species and the 'exotic' green species. Both did well in Exo-Terra mesh cages. The mesh allows them to climb around. I fed them daily with crickets and the occasional caught moth or grasshopper. Both were females so I let them go in the late summer so they could lay their egg cases. I recaptured the Cal native because I noticed her hanging around an egg case. I kept her till she died in November.

These insects live less than a year. For both of the species I am familiar with, the female is larger, has a large abdomen, and her wing covers do not extend to the end of her abdomen. Males are slender, smaller, and their wing cases extend to the tip of their abdomens. The females are lousy fliers. The males fly as well as grasshoppers and apparently do so to find the females.

Contrary to common belief, the females do not always eat their mates. Apparently the lab experiments of mating behavior used underfed, hungry females. Fortunately for the mantises, the males have a large ganglion in the thorax that allows them to proceed with mating even if beheaded or partially eaten.

Both females that I released to breed I later saw doing so. A male California native mated with the female for about an hour and then ran away. The green exotic male rode around on the females back for almost 2 days while mating continuously!

The mantises I am familiar with seem quite adept at evading birds and bats. They have excellent vision and when threatened they head down to ground cover. As they age, they become nocturnal predators. The adults have a hollow cavity in their abdomen which resonates with ultrasonic sounds. This allows them to know that they have been targeted by a bat and run for cover.

This year, rather than capturing any mantises, I have occasionally fed them using forceps to present prey to them.

These are fascinating invertebrates, second only to jumping spiders.

Answer 5

I rescued a very thin looking one at work about a month ago.  I think maybe a female.  I've been keeping it in a screen bug cage and feeding her flies that I've caught by holding a butterfly net over piles of dog dodo.  The mantis has eaten as many as 8/day, has shed it's skin (didn't know they did that), and gotten fatter and bigger.  I plan to let it go in a few weeks.

Amazing to watch it eat.  I had seen this as a kid, but none of my family ever had... fascinating...