After I lost Valerie, I moved Olena over to Val’s old house. I took some of her stuff along with her, but when I did, I forgot about an ootheca. Chinese praying mantises overwinter as oothecae here; the female deposits the case, and the little dudes hatch out when warm weather comes in spring. I have another one that I’d kept cold; I’m not sure that it’s viable, but it’s Olena’s, and she was “wild”, so it could be. Valerie’s would not be, since she never got to breed, but I left them in place in the enclosure, half out of laziness and half because…well, Valerie made them, and although she was just an insect, she was an insect I raised from a tiny hatchling.

Speaking of tiny hatchlings, the problem with my forgetting about what may have been a viable ootheca is that…it was viable, and although manti-duds are supposed to hatch in spring, it’s always spring in a heated house. As I reached to turn the light on for Olena this morning, I found a tiny mantis hatchling, proudly perched atop the light fixture. The tank was once set up for tiny nymphs, but after mine grew out a bit, I cut back some of the screen to facilitate putting in larger food for Valerie, so there was an escape route. The vast majority are still in there, but a few were out roaming. I got most of them, and there are a couple more I can’t reach, but I’ll get them later when they wander out into the open. I’m not prepared for baby mantises because my flightless fruit flies regained their dominant gene (scrapped the cultures), and certainly not 100+ (too scared to count, but it was a small ootheca) of a species that is both voracious and notoriously cannibalistic. I didn’t take Olena out, and although she gorged herself on crickets last night and doesn’t seem to notice the wee ones right beside her (makes me laugh because she’s so huge and they’re tiny, perfect replicas of her but for wings), but she’ll most likely eat at least some of them when she’s hungry again. They’ll eat each other, too, but still…they’re so itsy-bitsy and cute, I’m actually tempted to try to keep a survivor. Olena’s old, and has already lost use of one raptorial leg, so I’d been ready to lose her soon, but if I could keep just one little manti-dud alive, then I could have a mantis all winter. The pet store has fruit flies, and it’s not like I don’t know how to culture them. The bettas need them anyway. They have pinhead crickets, too, and without a mantis large enough to eat the house crickets in the enclosure now, they should breed and produce more.

I guess the most sensible thing to do is let nature take its course as much as possible. It’s my fault they’ve arrived now instead of in April or May, so they are my responsibility, but there is simply no reasonable way for me to keep that many indoors. That’s why I released all but two of the ones I hatched last spring, keeping only Valerie and the male she eventually killed. I’ve already interfered, but if I just get food for the little ones, and leave them be, with Olena in there, too (since I took down her enclosure after I lost Valerie), some of them will be eaten by her, some by their siblings, and a few should survive. They’re territorial, so eventually, there should be only one. One one hand, it seems cruel to leave helpless 1cm insects where I know the majority will not survive, especially since it is my fault they’re here in November, but I can’t set up that many homes for them. I guess I technically could because they really don’t need much more than a 1L container each, even as adults, but with a current rough estimate of 75-100 nymphs, and estimating 50% loss due to predation and cannibalism between now and L4, when they must be separated, that’s still 30-50 containers, and 30-50 hungry mouths that need live food which must be purchased since it’s out of season. That’s not reasonable, not even for tiny, adorable insects. I read somewhere that about 20% of mantis nymphs survive to adulthood, and even fewer avoid predation long enough to breed. That’s why nature makes them have hundreds of kids…low odds of survival. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see; they don’t eat for the first couple of days anyway, so I’ll get them some fruit flies and re-cover the section of screen I’d cut out so I don’t have mantis nymphs roaming all over the house. Olena probably won’t last much longer, and she’s got more than enough crickets (and mantis nymphs…now) in there that I won’t have to feed her or open the cover so 50 tiny manti-duds go charging up the wall, and my arms.

I should have been more careful, but there is no visual difference between a viable and a non-viable ootheca, and I thought there was only the one that could even potentially hatch…into TINY, ADORABLE ITSY-BITSY BABY MANTI-DUDS! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

EDIT: Awwwww! Brand new hatchling, not even supposed to be eating at all, and bless his little manti-heart, he’s already trying to hunt. I went out to check for any escapees that might have wandered into view, and this little dude was striking out at crickets many times his size. He may be little, but he’s got the manti-tude! 🙂