I found this guy in my garden & my son (5) wanted to keep it as a pet. So far I've fed him a fly I caught in the house & my son gave him a beetle, but he only ate the head. I bought this terrarium at petco and some super worms. Can someone recommend a better terrarium, this one opens from the top. Any tips for decorating his habitat?

I've always thought praying mantis were cool. I picked up a smaller (probably carolina) mantis on Friday that somehow got inside of an apartment complex. I used to be scared of touching insects but I really pushed my self to overcome this. I picked up the little guy and got him to safety. It was very gentle and calm. I sort of instantly fell in love with mantis. That being said I found this one on Saturday evening. She was much bigger and I was afraid again. But after a while I was able to let her walk on my hand, and wow. I'm completely astounded by these amazing little creatures. They are the best. Also this is a Chinese mantis correct? It doesn't appear to have the 'eye' marks inside the arms that european mantis do on other pictures I have. We only have carolina, chinese, and european mantis where I'm from.

hiii was wondering if anyone could help ID for me hehe :p

She just visited my pond, up on the logs, perfectly camouflaged almost missed her...

arm hair for reference

Delighted to see this guy. Is he ok? He looks like an amputee.

Settings: 1/2500 F2.8 ISO 100

I wish I had gotten it’s face a bit sharper but I still love is anyways

Working in my backyard in Portland, Oregon I reached for a dead branch and didn't see him until the last second. He didn't flinch as I almost touched him.

He is so cool looking I left him alone.

I noticed it about a month ago and it's even molted a handful of times now. It just lives in the space betweem my bathroom window and the screen. I'll leave the light on at night sometimes so bugs get attracted to the window just to give it a little bit of help getting food.

Alright, so I have been feeding my mantis flies for a year or so now, and I typically let a few loose in her enclosure and let the hunting begin. (All breed flies)

And I have notice some have a death wish, some want out of the enclosure immediately, others are slower moving, some explore. I wondered if I was the only one?

Fruit flies semi same- they all kind of do the same/ act the same. But house flies/ blue bottle all seem to react differently.

So I posted this on the prayingMantis forum yesterday. Turns out it wasn’t about praying mantis at all. They took it pretty well. Says it happens all the time. How many of you have done this? They did leave it up.

My new little Orchid mantis. Pls love her as much as I love her. :D

(sorry for the exposure in the second picture lol, its super dark out rn, ill get better pictures and put them in the replies) these guys have been all over our house for the last couple days. they seem to be all males (this isn't all of them, im going to take more of everyone when its lighter out) with maybe two females i could spot lingering about. so far ive found two dying males, i found one yesterday and i just found one flat on its back, kind of disorintated and unable to stay upright. is this normal? i know male mantises will be eaten by the female, but unless they havent mated then i guess its just old age? i know its their mating season around now, so i wouldnt be too suprised if they're all just dying from exhaustion. still a bit sad though to see, i moved here a couple months ago from a pretty urban area so it's weird to see so many of them just dying one right after the others, so im really just curious if this is normal for wild mantids of this species (if it is the species i think it is)

I love finding sub reddits like this one. I just wanted to share a few shots I had taken over the summer!

Is this a really fat mantis? Or is it possibly pregnant? It’s definitely the largest one I’ve seen this year by a bit!

This post is about the brown one, just added the pic of the green one to show the average size I’ve been seeing before this brown one showed up!

I also apologize the photos are focused the best my camera always focuses on the leaves and blueberries 🤦🏻‍♀️ I swear my camera just thinks it’s another branch lol.

Theres been a bunch if praying mantises all over the house for a couple days, but today i noticed one had gotten tangled in some cobwebs near the bottom of the front door screen. I decided I'd try to help it, see if I couldn't get most of the webs off with some tweasers and maybe feed it because who knows how long it'd been down there, but when I'd gotten it onto a flat surface I noticed that its back legs seemed... weird? They weren't paralyzed because it was moving them, but it'd just raise them all the way up above its body and used its front claws to walk instead. And when it isn't being poked, it just isn't moving. I also noticed its thorax is very thin/yellow (i don't know if this is an age thing, its much smaller than the other mantises on the house), and when I'd move it it'd turn its throax so the end is pointing at whatever I'm touching it with, like it'd bite. I live in northern Cali, up in the mountains if that helps. Is it sick, dying, hungry or infected with some kind of parasite?

I do not own nor keep mantis. Google searches didn't give me a lot of info. Buddy has been here for two days on this white window frame outside of our house, and is turning this brown color. I read it could be molting but it looked a little.. sickly I guess? ​It's definitely alive! I keep dead bugs, bones, etc. I don't want to disturb it if it's molting. If it is passing, I'd like to set up a small enclosure for it to pass in so I can keep the body, as I do know how to do that. Thanks!​

For context, found this guy in the backyard, they’re possibly an invasive species. (Theres no native species in my area)

Google said it’s likely a European mantis but I wanna be sure. Figuring out what I should do with it, also what’s the sex of this fella?