Praying Mantis

     I agreed to get a Praying Mantis egg for my youngest child. She is endlessly curious about creatures and at the age of nine, could challenge most adults with her knowledge of animals, sea creatures, and insects. 
     As with all of our projects, I did all of the research. Once I had researched the Praying Mantis until I had reached the "This is the end of the Internet" sign, I condensed a few sites for the girls to read the information and view a few videos. Mind you, all the while, the details of this project are making me a little more squeamish than I would have anticipated.
    First of all, we already had a suitable "cage" since we have previously hatched butterflies, so we moved on to ordering an egg case.  Yes, that is correct, it is an egg case. It is a little ball that resembles poop.  Yes, I said it.  It is too obvious not to say.
    One of the "details" is that each of these egg cases can provide between 100-400 mantids. I bought two in case one did not hatch. (Uh, yeah, I'm thrilled at the prospect of having 800 bugs in my home..) Oh wait! That's not correct either, because one of the other tiny details is that when they hatch, they need to eat.  What do they eat?  Each other.  Okay, if you do not feed them a suitable food, they will eat each other. So, what is a suitable food?  They like insects. The insects that are small enough for a baby mantid to eat happen to be flightless fruit flies. (Please say that three times.. for effect.)
   I have mentioned that we have hatched butterflies.  Well, let me just say how much more I appreciate butterflies.  They have the decency to suck sugar water off of a sponge or paper towel.. Nice and easy food source.  Also, butterflies have a reliable calendar. They arrive and you have an approximate due date. Ours have hatched within a day or two of that date. That is because the butterfly life cycle is relatively fixed. Eggs are layed and a clock starts.  The day or so before they hatch, they even give you clues.. The cocoons begin to wiggle.  Nice of them to give a sign.
   Praying mantis egg cases are not so accommodating.  I glued them to a stick.. per the instructions.. and then it says, "will hatch in approximately three to eight weeks".  WHAT?  What kind of guideline is that?  Apparently, these creatures have a time clock that changes with the temperature, humidity and wind direction.  All things must be within reasonable parameters for a length of time (also unspecified) before they mature enough to hatch.  Nice.. oh, and there is no wiggling, no color change in the egg cases.. No signals that us mere humans are able to detect.
   So, I talk a few teachers into having a praying mantis lesson for the children.  If I'm going to have hundreds of them, I am going to share.  I created worksheets and information sheets for the classes.
   And we wait...and wait.. This poses a laundry list of questions.  Do we do the worksheets and risk not seeing any "action" out of these eggs for a month or more?  Do we leave them in the classroom waiting for them to hatch and eat each other over the weekend before anyone notices? 
   I decided to keep them home. The odds are tiny that they will hatch the same day, so I figure that I will see some hatchlings and take them to school the following morning.  If you have been paying attention, tiny odds should be tattooed on my forehead.
   As I sit here now, the first egg case began hatching just before we came home this afternoon. This meant I drove to the closest pet store carrying the flightless fruit flies to get food. (About 7 miles away) I returned and watched with fascination as they drop and hang from the egg case, waiting to dry before crawling away. Just now, the second egg case began hatching. GREAT.  Now, I will be showing a video of the hatching process tomorrow at school. 
   I also have two vile vials on my desk containing the flies and maggots that will grow into more flies as well as some sort of toxic looking goo at the bottom that the flies are feeding on.  Eeewweeee..  There just are not words to describe the feeling. How do I get here?  It always starts with an idea.  Then I realize that all things truly seem to be possible. The next thing ya know, there are nasty things in a jar on my desk.
    The things I do to promote growing minds.  The purpose of doing all of this is to teach a few simple concepts.  Praying mantis do not carry disease. They do not bother humans. They eat insects that humans kill with pesticides. More Praying mantis', less pesticides. Also, to teach that they are indiscriminate predators. If it crawls, flies or hops like a bug, and will fit into their mouth, they will eat it.  Females only eat the males if they are hungry and nothing else is nearby. Same with the babies.  They will eat their siblings only if they are hungry and cant find something else.
     An inadvertent lesson is that it is more important to learn than to be squeamish.  We also will be releasing hundreds of mantids into the local environment to eat lots of garden pests. With any luck, their efforts will be appreciated.