Saturday, March 6, 2010

Praying Mantis Pagoda

You would think it'd be enough having 28 chicks in my living room (peep, peep, peep!).  And 4 cats.  And a dog.  And 3 kids.  Not to mention a husband.  And 4 million toys.  Enough already, right?

But I have a 3 year old BOY.  And he likes to experience new things.  So I embraced his boy-dom and ordered him the Praying Mantis Pagoda out of some cash my mom had given me to get him something 'educational'.  (Thanks, Mom!) 

Our pagoda came a couple of weeks ago.  Here it is:

We had to send off separately for the praying mantis population.  They arrived yesterday.


This little egg sac of sorts is going to hatch in 3-6 weeks.  And then we'll have about 100 baby praying mantises in our pagoda. 
We're supposed to release all but one or two into the wild.
Otherwise they will eat each other.
And one lucky mantis gets to live in the pagoda and grow.
We will feed it soft bugs to eat.


Pierce is very excited for hatching day.

In the meantime, I just can't help wondering:
Do praying mantises eat stinkbugs?

Please, please, please say YES.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Call your county extension agent and they can tell you if a praying mantis will eat stinkbugs.
High five!
lovemom

Anonymous said...

I had no idea that you could order praying mantis babies. One recommendation. When you release them, do it far away from your house. My dog always brings in baby praying mantis on his fur and they end up all over my house...kind of like the stink bugs! Speaking of stink bugs, I vacummed a live one up today. I can't even imagine where it has been hiding. Bugs...ick! You are a good mom!:)

-Cameron