I saw a praying mantis on our front porch recently. It was the first one I’ve seen in quite a while. Back when there were meadows and open spaces, we saw lots of mantids. As kids, we would catch them, put them in glass jars with holes in the lid, observe the interesting creatures and let them go, but woe be to any kid who let a praying mantis take hold with her pincers. They would bite you!
I was pleased to see our mantis friend because this insect can a be a backyard gardener’s best friend. They are devastating predators, devouring most any other insect they happen upon.
Mantids use specialized front legs to capture prey. If a bee or a fly happens to land within its reach, the mantis will extend its arms with lightning quick speed, and grab the hapless insect. Sharp spines line the mantid’s forelegs, allowing it to grasp the prey tightly as it eats.
Because they eat many insects, they are so popular with gardeners that many order mantid egg sacs to start a colony in their own garden or yard.
The name, praying mantis, is derived because of the way the insect crosses its front feet, almost as in prayer. They are weirdly spiritual creatures with alien-like eyes and the ability to rotate their heads 180 degrees. Forget about sneaking up on a praying mantis. They can see you coming from any direction.
A primary enemy of a praying matis is a bat, which can feed on the awkward insects in flight. But mantids have a unique ear which can detect the ultrasounds produced by bats in flight. When the detect these sounds, they drop from the air like a sack of potatoes and avoid capture.
Female mantids get a bad rap because they are known to eat their mates during the sexual act, but believe it or not, that does not stop the male, who continues to procreate even without his head. With mantids, it’s the male who gets a headache during love-making.
Mantids lay their eggs in the fall. The female deposits her eggs on a twig or stem, and secures them with a Styrofoam-like substance, which she secretes from her body. The egg sac is generally tan in color, oval and about an inch and a half long. The sacs are fairly easy to detect, but don’t make the mistake of bringing in a mantis egg sac during the winter.
When my wife Nancy was a third grader, she once brought a mantis nest to school for show-and-tell on a Friday. By Monday morning, thousands of baby mantids hatched and school officials had to shut down half of the school to fumigate.
But I hope my resident praying mantis sticks around, lays her eggs and the little mantids find their way into my yard and garden next spring. When you have a praying mantis on guard duty, who needs pesticides?