- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you've been pruning bushes or trees, check to see if a praying mantis egg case (ootheca) is attached to a limb.
If you do, you're in luck!
A mantis deposits her egg case in late summer or fall, and usually on twigs, stems, a wooden stake or fence slat, but sometimes even on a clothespin.
The nymphs emerge in early spring.
The hard egg capsule protects the future offspring from "microorganisms, parasitoids, predators, and weather," Wikipedia tells us. The ootheca "maintains a stable water balance through variation in its surface, as it is porous in dry climates to protect against desiccation, and smooth in wet climates to protect against oversaturation. Its composition and appearance vary depending on species and environment."
Meanwhile we've been watching a neighbor's gift: an ootheca attached to redbud twig. With any luck, we expect the nymphs to emerge around April 9, weather permitting.
Back in 2022--April 9th to be exact--we were delighted to see some 150 nymphs emerge from the clothespin just a'hanging on the line. Of course, the sisters and brothers ate one another. Only a handful survived.
It's survival of the fittest. Or the fleetist. Or maybe just luck?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Last fall, a Stagmomantis limbata deposited her egg case, or ootheca, on a clothespin on our outdoor clothesline. On April 9, the clothespin sprang to life. Hundreds of nymphs emerged, scrambled away, and vanished.
Some wandered around on the clothesline. Some ate one another. Some survived to adulthood.
We saw only four in our pollinator garden: a female in the patch of lion's tail, Leonotis leonurus; a female on the Mexican sunflower Tithonia rotundifola; and a male and female in the African blue basil, Ocimum kilimandscharicum × basilicum 'Dark Opal."
They appeared, disappeared, and never re-appeared.
Meanwhile, our lantana, Lantana camara, proved to be a magnet for such pollinators as honey bees, syrphid flies, skippers and cabbage white butterflies, but nary a praying mantis.
Fast forward to the late afternoon of Sept. 25. There perched in the flood of red and gold blossoms was a gush of green, a beautiful gravid praying mantis, S. limbata, looking as if she'd never missed a meal and looking quite Mama-like.
How did we ever miss her?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Saturday, April 9 was the day a clothespin sprang to life.
Some 200 praying mantis nymphs emerged from an ootheca that Mama Mantis (Stagmomantis limbata) had deposited last summer in our pollinator garden in Vacaville.
We first noticed the camouflaged ootheca (aka eggcase or ooth) on the wooden clothespin in mid-March when we were hanging a freshly laundered dog blanket on the line.
Then on that warm Saturday, with temperatures edging 80 degrees, the clothespin exploded with life. From a distance, the nymphs looked like feathery little ants flicking about.
Mama's babies.
Looking a lot like Mama, they edged out of the ooth, crawled up and down the clothesline, and then some ascended a metallic quail sculpture, the highest point.
A bird's eye view.
Praying mantis experts say that only a handful will survive to maturity. Yes, they will eat one another, along with other small insects such as fruit flies and aphids. Then they will advance to larger prey.
When Sunday dawned, they were gone.
Mama's babies.
