brigid:

One year I found a couple of praying mantis egg cases when I took out the pepper plants in the fall. I kept them in the garage over the winter, then brought them into the greenhouse in spring and put them in a fishbowl covered with screenwire. After a few weeks, hundreds of tiny mantises hatched out.

They looked very much like tiny grasshoppers.

If you are rooting around your garden in the fall, mantis egg cases look like lumps of tan foam plastic, and are very tough. Don't destroy them. Praying mantises are among the most beneficial of all the beneficials. Next time you see a tiny bug like this, catch one (if you can) and look at it under a magnifying glass. If it is a mantis, you will see the characteristic folded front grasping legs.

When you pose a question of this nature, knowing your location helps to place you in the right context of climate and other conditions.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks for the input! I haven't seen any more of the little critters, so I still don't know what they were, but they did no harm. FYI, I am in California zone 14 (but bordering on 7, with some influences from that area). I can never remember my USDA zone. 9, maybe? Northern Calif. I have been wishing for a praying mantis in my yard for years, so I can only hope that's what they were and that some stayed around somewhere. Now, if I could just attract some bats to eat the mosquitos....

--Brigid