I recently learned, to my delight, that praying mantids can be found around where I live (suburban Chicago) after a buddy showed me a pic of one he caught and was feeding live minnows to (and boy can they mess one up!). I think that’s fantastic and now I’m out to find one of my own. My buddy caught his in his back yard like it was no big deal. My problem is I’ve lived here most of my life and I have never seen one. I’m a pretty avid outdoors person who goes fishing and camping pretty often, so if they were really common I’d think I’d have seen one or two by now. Are they really rare and that’s why I’ve never seen one? Where do they spend most of their time?
They tend to stay pretty still and are well camoflaged, such that if you aren’t looking for one - and don’t disturb one - you don’t notice it. Which does seem kinda unusual because they are pretty darned huge when you do see them.
I live in the burbs W of Chi and have seen them most frequently when clearing brush/pulling weeds in overgrown areas. Occasionally I’ve seen them on walls - on my home, on a local supermarket. Not sure what disturbed them and brought them there. On such occasions I or my son placed them on some nearby greenery.
I see a couple a summer, but never intentionally go looking for them. About the same frequency that I see katydids.
They eat so much that they are not high-density in population - so unlike some other insects you’d really have to be right place - right time to see one. Add in the very effective camoflauge, and you’re talking about closely examining plants regularly to have a reasonable chance of spotting one. So it’s not that they are rare in the “almost extinct”, but rare in the sense of “accidentally running across one and spotting it” sense.
Another west Chicago suburbs voice – I used to work for a garden center and would see them from time to time on the plants. Usually I’d spot them while watering the flowers since it meant that I was (a) staring at the plants and (b) the mantis would tend to move due to the wetness.
Given that they’re colored to match their surroundings and they spend a lot of time staying still, you’re likely to miss them if you’re not in a good location and specifically looking for them. As Thudlow Boink states, I didn’t see them all the time but it was often enough that they went from “Holy cow! A praying matis!” to “Hey, nifty… another mantis.”
They were neat though and would take a swipe at a twig if you tapped it in front of them. I’ve wanted to come across one to show to my son (don’t worry… I capture and release household spiders; this wouldn’t be a “pet”) but since I’m not outdoors like I used to be, fate hasn’t smiled upon me yet.
Thanks for the replies so far. I guess I’ll just have to look a little closer at some plants and such to see if I can spot one. Just in case anyone wanted to see a picture of the mantis my buddy caught eating a minnow, here you go. Not for the overly squeamish.
I don’t know about Chicago, but as a kid in the Bronx I used to find them all the time in weeds in vacant lots. It’s a matter of looking closely. Sometimes they hang out near flowers waiting for bees to show up.
If you can’t find them yourself, hire a twelve-year-old to get some for you.
Is there much risk from handling mantids? As in, sticking your hand/arm out to one and letting it crawl on you. I’ve always been fascinated by them, but their fiercesome jaws are off-putting. Will they bite? And is their bite dangerous?
Hoooorayyyy! New walpaper. Replaced the Centipede photo I’d been using.
Thanks.
Anyway, I’ve seen one on the side of a Walgreens Store that we were building at the time. It was about 6 feet off the ground sunning itself on the brick. Pretty cool, but I haven’t seen one around here since. I think they get even more rare the farther north you go.
Just in case anyone else was wondering what the difference was between a mantid and a mantis, I found the following on the net. Not sure if it entirely clears it up for me, but here it is FWIW:
Now, if anyone can tell me the phylogeny of Mantrid…
I see them a lot here in Kentucky, without looking. There was one on the window two nights ago, which we watched while we ate dinner. (He just watched us, as far as I know; no consumption of minnows AFAIK.)
In addition, back in the spring, we observed several teeny tiny praying mantisesses outside on the back deck and in the grass.
I should add, though, that I live in a suburban neighborhood with a large green space behind, so we have lots of insects, bunnies, birds, etc. Centepedes :eek:
I was brought up in Chicago, and I’ve only seen a mantis in the area once, about 10 years ago. It was near the Morton Arboretum, and I just assumed they had released some for pest control. I thought mantises needed a warmer climate and Chicago winters would kill them off.
Yeah, having grown up in both the Chicagoland Area and the Mississippi/Tennessee/Arkansas Area, IMHO the best method for catching one is to go out looking for them.
That must be either a small mantid or large minnow. Or are midwestern ones smaller than their east coast brethren.
In the Blue Ridge where I used to live they were downright unmissable. During summers I’d see several per day in the garden, hanging on our walls, wherever. Got a small pinch off one once that I was handling to show the kid.
I was a kid in Chicago (67-71 and 77-80) and don’t recall ever seeing one there, though. Weird.
