Hole Studies

Do you know how a baby Praying Mantis is born? Neither did I until just recently… While camping on Maui, I noticed a cocoon on my rental car antenna.  I didn’t think much of it until one night I witnessed it coming alive!

At first, it had small webs and small little creatures coming from the bottom.  Soon, it had about one hundred little creatures dangling from the web.  I thought they might have been crickets or grasshoppers, but I was about to be pleasantly surprised.  I noticed that the babies had very distinct arms and huge heads and looked exactly like a Praying Mantis… Wait! They ARE Praying Mantises!  They were about 300 Praying Mantises!  How did they all fit in that little cocoon?!

I tried to gather my camping gear and everything else in the car that I might need for the night and next morning because I knew that the car was soon going to become inaccessible.  I was correct.  Within a minute or two, the web touched the car and all the baby Praying Mantises were all over the car!  They were so cute!

I decided to go to sleep and let them scurry around the grass, trees, and beach overnight.  I was scared to touch them in fear that I might accidently hurt them.  Weren’t these things are the endangered list not too long ago?!  I know these are really rare…

The next morning I checked the car and saw that they were still all over!  I spent about 45 minutes taking them off the car, individually, and putting them in the grass.  I wanted to keep one but it’s kind of difficult to have a pet insect while traveling.  It’s too bad; baby Pray Mantises are super cute, unique, rare, and will keep the bugs away at your BBQs!