If you live in the northern half of the US or the southern 1/5th of Canada, in about 2 or 3 weeks, the baby Praying Mantis are going to hatch out.
I thought it'd be interesting to grow out an egg mass to adult, breed them, keep those egg masses, and overwinter them.
Who's in?
You need:
Crickets
Spray bottle
Smallish enclosure (mantises should be kept seperated, they don't need a huge amout of space individually) with ventillation. Keep out of direct sun. Room temperature is ok.
Basically, feed it, mist it so it can drink. That's it. Very easy to maintain. They need climbing surfaces.
YouTube - Praying Mantis Laying Ootheca - Egg Case
This is what the egg case looks like.
Make sure you position it inverted
YouTube - Praying Mantis Egg Case
The mantids are very tiny when they hatch and can only eat things like very small flies or pinhead crickets.
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