More crawling things

So we loved the butterflies so much, we decided to get the ladybugs and praying mantis egg, too.

The mantis egg case arrived unharmed, and we set it up in the proper enclosure, and waited.


It was fantastic timing.  The day after we released the ladybugs, we woke up to this:


Lots of tiny little mantises!

We dropped in some bananas for them to eat as a snack until we could get the feeder insects.

We were going to release all but one, and we set up a tank for it to live.

He looks very happy!  We named him Spear.

I never realized how little they were as nymphs.  And these are Chinese Mantises.  They're the biggest species in North America.

Snack time!

We released them, and put one on the spawn's strawberry plant, to guard against nasty insects.


Time for another snack!

He's got a voracious appetite, and loves to eat.  Right now he's eating little flightless fruit flies and growing fast.

We won't know for sure if he's a male or female until he gets bigger.  But he's an adorable little guy!

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