Ain't nature freaky sometimes?!?!?!

[Teresa]

Ok, so this is going to be a long story.  It starts way back before Christmas.  We always get a live tree because that's just what we do.  So we go pick out a smallish tree in early December and it's unseasonably warm.  Maddie finds a 'pinecone' on the tree and when it falls off, she asks me to hold it.  I drop it in the pocket of my jacket where it lives for the next couple of weeks.  It's not a pine cone at all, not sure what it is, but it doesn't even look like something natural . . . looks like a blob of that expanding foam that we use to seal waterfalls and plumbers use to fill in around pipes.

Sometime later, I find it in my pocket when I'm heading out the door and drop it on the counter where all the bills live.  I pass by it several times in the next couple of months and each time think "What the heck is that stupid thing still doing here?  Someone ought to throw it away."

Fast forward to this morning.  I need to mail Mom's mail to her and pay Dad's bills and figure out if the insurance company and stock broker company have done anything about the problems I still have with them - plus need to transfer vehicle titles so need to spend a couple hours on hold with the DMV, etc.  I figure I'd better gather up my bills too and they're sorta mixed in with Mom's and Dad's on the counter.  So I have to sort the stuff on the counter into piles.

Well, as I start picking the major junk off the counter I realize there are hundreds, no thousands of tiny little 1/4" long bugs all over the counter.  They aren't ants and they don't look like roaches . . . some of them are alive and moving.  Start scooping them off with a piece of junk mail and there are more and more and more and more.  Get the front part of the counter cleaned off and they're still coming from the back part. 

I get my glasses and look really closely and discover that I've got thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of tiny little newly hatched Praying Mantises.  Dig farther and find the egg case behind the pen tub and even more of the little buggers back there . . . . tens of thousands of them (maybe hundreds of thousands).

I put them all outside and then decided it probably would have been a good idea to save some for Maddie to take to school . . . it was her 'pine cone' after all.

[Sean]

  You had me in stitches there.

I have always wanted to have mantids in my garden but they are not native here so I do not know if they are legal or not to obtain?

Is it warm enough there that they will survive outside?

Cheers,
Sean

[Teresa]

I hope so - it's supposed to get up to 60 today and it's supposed to be warmish for the next week or so.  I figure that they have no chance indoors since they are the only bugs right now (thank goodness). 

Plus, I didn't think about them not surviving until they'd all scattered outside . . . . went out to look for a couple and they were gone, gone, gone. . . .

[goldenangel]

That was my first thought too.  How warm is it outside?  I know very little about them so maybe some will survive.  They are cute, but I sure wouldn't want any inside.  Let alone that many.  

[CT]

   ..I was wondering the same thing. I bet they weren't happy to leave the nice warm house.

[Cindi]

Oh my goodness I couldn't imagine that happening to me!!  Good thing they were only praying mantis'!! 

[Ky Kim]

 , that would be something to find in the house.  Hopefully a few will make it outside.

Kim

[Mikey]

Strange.  Very strange indeed.

[Kittyzee]

What a great story!  I love finding mantis cocoons in my garden,,, then I am assured of my own pest control.  They start out as so tiny you can barely see them (perfect miniature adults) and each week you see then progressively getting bigger and bigger until they are full fledged grown ups.  How lucky you are to have them, I hope they survive   

[Indiana Karen]

I knew exactly what you had when you described it.  We find them everywhere in our shrubs.  I remember in high school one hatched out and filled the school with tiny mantis.  Although we have a lot of cocoons, we never have a lot of adults, we always find several but not like you would think, knowing how many hatch out.  Here is one from this  past summer.  Every morning it was sitting in a fresh day lily waiting for a bee.
Karen

[CT]

Neat picture Karen

[EagleEye]

That is a great story, that only you could come up with. 
It's rare to actually see one, but they are so cool.
That is unless you have a kitchen counter full of them.

Steve

[Teresa]

That is a great story, that only you could come up with. 
It's rare to actually see one, but they are so cool.
That is unless you have a kitchen counter full of them.

Steve

Actually, it was really cool.  I wish I'd done more thinking and less reacting . . . . I would have put them in a terrarium till the girls got home - yeah, I know, some of them would have eaten others, but at least a few would be healthy and the girls would have seen them.  And I would have taken pics (youngest daughter's first question was "Did you take pictures?") before I cleaned up the mess.

And yeah, this is the kind of thing that only happens in my house . . . . never a dull moment.

Next time I see one of those blobs of expanding foam, I'll know what it is . . . . .

[CT]

Big cats peering down from the ceiling, mantids on the counter..life at Teresa's house.. never dull 

[SheilaJ]

I have a friend who's a science teacher, she had one hatch out all over her classroom, kids had a ball catching all of them!

[emm]

That is so neat Teresa!    I would love to see something like that, even if they were in the house.  We see the occasional adult mantis around here but I had never even thought about how they might start off.  I'm going to be searching for "blobs of exploding foam" on my trees and shrubs if spring ever shows up here.  Thanks for sharing.  emm

[happyoutsidegirl]

ROTFLMSAO!  That's a great story. To bad ya didn't think to just put them in a house plant or two. I find those all over the place and I try not to disturb them. We have huge green ones and brown ones. I just wish they would eat the black widows. Since I put my pond in I find them all the time now. (widows)

[Joyce]

Great story Teresa!

My brother did that to my mom once. (praying mantis egg case in the bathroom)
And I did it to her with a Cecropia Moth Cocoon.
It hatched when I was in school, 2nd grade.
By the time I got home, my mom was a mess.
She thought it was a bat.

I caught it and put it outside.
I think my mom ended up having a drink. (she never drinks)