Hatching Praying Mantis

2007:  We found a couple of praying mantis eggs in our yard on a bush and brought them indoors so we could see them hatch when the time came.  Well, today was the day!  Yippee!  One eggs sac hatched and we expect the other one to hatch as well in the next day or so.  It's so amazing how 100-200 baby praying mantis hatch out of one egg sac!

Look!  His mandible is open.  How cute.

We let all but about twenty go.  We're going to watch them a while longer.  We put the rest back out on the bush where we found the egg sac.

This is the glass jar we kept the two egg sacs in.  The top is covered by pantyhose.  The praying mantis are so small that any other type of netting would allow them to escape.

 

If you want to watch a praying mantis egg sac hatch and can't find one of your own, you can buy from your local garden stores or online.

2009: We bought a praying mantis egg sac for a friend for a birthday present and bought one for ourselves as well.  We love watching them hatch!  Ours hatched yesterday.  They're so cute and fascinating!  My good close up camera needed to be charged so I had to use my regular camera and it didn't take the good pictures like I got last go around. 

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