Do you know how a baby Praying Mantis is born? Neither did I until just recently… While camping on Maui, I noticed a cocoon on my rental car antenna. I didn’t think much of it until one night I witnessed it coming alive!
At first, it had small webs and small little creatures coming from the bottom. Soon, it had about one hundred little creatures dangling from the web. I thought they might have been crickets or grasshoppers, but I was about to be pleasantly surprised. I noticed that the babies had very distinct arms and huge heads and looked exactly like a Praying Mantis… Wait! They ARE Praying Mantises! They were about 300 Praying Mantises! How did they all fit in that little cocoon?!
I tried to gather my camping gear and everything else in the car that I might need for the night and next morning because I knew that the car was soon going to become inaccessible. I was correct. Within a minute or two, the web touched the car and all the baby Praying Mantises were all over the car! They were so cute!
I decided to go to sleep and let them scurry around the grass, trees, and beach overnight. I was scared to touch them in fear that I might accidently hurt them. Weren’t these things are the endangered list not too long ago?! I know these are really rare…
The next morning I checked the car and saw that they were still all over! I spent about 45 minutes taking them off the car, individually, and putting them in the grass. I wanted to keep one but it’s kind of difficult to have a pet insect while traveling. It’s too bad; baby Pray Mantises are super cute, unique, rare, and will keep the bugs away at your BBQs!
Such a beautiful animal. It’s unfortunate that there isnt some sort of a domestic knock off of them. Although I completely agree that keeping a wild animal as a pet is cruel in almost all cases. I say almost because there are people who keep them as pets..but also work with them and have? a license to keep them and give them the best environment possible. Untofrunately that isnt usually the case though
Wow, that’s amazing that you were able to experience that!