We have babies!

A couple of days after Christmas I mentioned Audrey's preying mantis she'd been keeping for a while had died (you can find the story somewhere on this page, Dec. 27 I think; I can't seem to link directly to particular dates if they go too far back. Curse Blogger!). I can't remember if I mentioned the mantis had laid an egg sac about two weeks after we caught her. I was not convinced anything would come of this, because I had read that mantids can lay infertile, or empty, egg sacs if they have not mated. In fact, she laid a second sac a few weeks after the first which, since we had not caught a friend to accompany her, I was certain was an infertile sac, and I pulled it out of the mesh container not long after we found it.

After Abby/Maria died (she never did decided on a name), I put the cage with the egg sac on the enclosed front porch, thinking they might need a cool winter to take them through until spring. If they hatched while it was still cold, and we could not set them free, I knew (from personal experience having one as a child) they would cannibalize each other. After the trauma of the first one dying, I did not want to go through this! So on the porch they stayed through the winter.

A few days ago Audrey found a caterpillar she wanted to keep. She did manage to find some leaves it would eat, and she wanted to put it in the bug catcher the egg sac was in. I had decided the thing was infertile, and went out to the front porch so I could tear the egg sac out and make it ready for "Cutie-pie", as she calls the caterpillar. Good thing I did not do this a day earlier, because a hundred or so little praying mantids were perched around the container.



I explained to Audrey why we could not keep all of them, but now I've got to figure out how to feed the one we will keep. Ones this little can only eat fruit flies or something that small. I'm hoping we can get something appropriate at Petco (where we got crickets for the mama mantis).