Well, I'm glad you are happy! I bought some our first year here, and haven't bought any since. I always have a few around though, so perhaps they are descendants of the ones I bought. :)

Not to rain on your parade, but you do realize that they will even eat each other, don't you? Just asking. It is quite a sight to watch 2 battle one another. Guess what happens to the loser? And they will eat the good bugs that come to your garden to eat the bad bugs. So, yes they are helpful and no they are not. (Not that you asked for my opinion, but there it is anyway!) (Smiling.)

I hope they are beneficial in your garden. They are really cute to watch when they all hatch and are climbing all over the place. I think they are fascinating, and even find them hanging onto the hummingbird feeders sometimes in an effort to get the insects that come around wanting hummingbird nectar.

I do think any insect that is a predator of other insects is good, but wish we could train our preying mantids to eat only the "bad" bugs and leave the "good" bugs alone.

Happy Gardening!

Dawn

You are going to have to rain harder than that to get my parade wet! ;)

I did my homework on them so I know they don't sort the bugs out before they eat them, even though I wish they would. Oh well.

We have a wooded creek on our property. I just hope that some of them find that and lay a bunch of eggs this fall. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't breed but it sounds like you have proven that theory wrong. Good news for me!

I had a friend a few years back that would collect a few mantids put them In jars with sticks. Feed them moths.Find them a boyfriend. Then they would lay thier eggs on that stick. The eggs would not get eaten during the winter.
Her husband thought it was so cool that he bought her one from africa.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cool bugs

I bought some egg cases one year also. It was early March when I got them, so I decided to keep them in the house until it was a bit warmer outside. Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened. My daughter and I were "attempting" to scoop up as many hatchlings as possible, running outside to put them on trees, vines, plants, grass, whatever was nearest, running back into the house to scoop as many as we could see, and of course, they ran for cover, thinking their first day on earth was at Woodstock!

One day I had hundreds, and the next day I couldn't find a single loyal praying mantid! After I virtually laid down my life trying to medi-lift them to safety! Ungrateful brats!

Oh, well......lesson learned. For the first time last year, it seemed like every plant I examined had at least one praying mantid with a staked claim. I don't, however have any illusions that they are the progeny of my escapade - I just have a lot more plant material in the yard, thus more bugs to eat, thus more mantids preying.

If you plant it, they will come!

Susan