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Over a month ago, I bought a praying mantis egg case and stuck it in the rosemary. It never hatched, and I gave up on and then forgot about it...
...until I just now discovered a bazillion adorable praying mantises in the rosemary! Just look at them!
I had heard that baby mantises can be cannibals, so I madly rushed back and forth with mantises in my hands, one by one, to deposit them in particularly bug-infested parts of the garden. My garden is scattered all over and the rosemary is upstairs, so I am now soaked in sweat but more importantly, the wee mantids are everywhere and will hopefully thrive and eat all the aphids.
They are so so tiny. And they jump, in addition to taking standard mantis poses. I hope to be discovering them for many months to come. There were at least twenty of them.
...until I just now discovered a bazillion adorable praying mantises in the rosemary! Just look at them!
I had heard that baby mantises can be cannibals, so I madly rushed back and forth with mantises in my hands, one by one, to deposit them in particularly bug-infested parts of the garden. My garden is scattered all over and the rosemary is upstairs, so I am now soaked in sweat but more importantly, the wee mantids are everywhere and will hopefully thrive and eat all the aphids.
They are so so tiny. And they jump, in addition to taking standard mantis poses. I hope to be discovering them for many months to come. There were at least twenty of them.
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They are hella cute! I hope they eat all the aphids.
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Glad I scattered them far and wide, then! Hopefully they won't run into each other.
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*high-pitched noises of delight*
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That's marvelous. I hope they do well.
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I am jealous of her pet mantises!
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And to rephrase: mantises can be communal, cannibalistic if they have to be, or cannibalistic just because. Anything that can be released into a garden in the US is going to be a European or Chinese species, which tend to be cannibalistic just because.
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I'm picturing you like a Disney princess but with mantises.
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HONOUR!
I had baby mantises perched on my arms! They sought the higher ground very rapidly.
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I hope that the food is plentiful enough that they'll be distracted from eating each other.
(Maybe you could take one down to the vacant lot garden? More bugs there, I bet...)
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(I hope you wake up tomorrow morning surrounded by your fair of Impressed mantises. Mantisedes?)
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Actually, the first thing was very silly: "but cats don't hatch!"
That's probably because I spent a good portion of yesterday watching the live feed of feral cat Stella waiting to have her kittens. (Spoiler: she ended up needing a C-section; there are now three tiny happy kittens.)
I hope that the baby praying mantises eat many aphids and live long and prosper in your garden.
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P.
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