IS OXFORD GREEN ENOUGH? IS IT GREEN ENOUGH FOR PRAYING MANTIDS?

Apparently yes!!!    I have never seen them before, my first encounter with this beautiful insect (I also never thought that I would describe an insect as such, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”) was at the beginning of this summer when John D’Agostino, a senior at Nonnewaug High School who lives in Oxford, found 6 of them about 2 inches long while doing some work in our property.    He brought them in to show me because he had never seen them either.    He went on to tell me how rare it was to find one never mind six, then he proceeded to tell me everything I ever needed to know about the praying mantids.     

I am sure those who know John; when John speaks you just can’t help but listen, and it just has to be true.    His vast knowledge of plants, insects, reptiles and, of course, his love for Sharks is impressive.

I mentioned to my husband about the finding and he was like wow, that is cool.   He said, “I have not seen one in the 30 years I have been in Oxford; and only several when I was a kid” (Sussex County, New Jersey).   Well, my husband got his wish about 4 weeks later in the evening; he found a very large one hanging on the siding of the house.   I did not get a chance to see it that evening, but two days ago when Ed found a 6” in the garden,  I got an awesome opportunity to see an adult praying mantid.   It was really amazing to get so close to it and take the pictures that I have posted here.   It was really eerie while I was taking the pictures, it turned my way and looked directly at me.   That was intense.

The following information is what I found on line, and when I started reading it, my experience with them made perfect sense:

With its large eyes and swiveling head, the mantid entertains and fascinates us. Most people call members of the suborder Mantodea praying mantises, referring to their prayer-like posture when sitting. Mantis is a Greek word meaning prophet or soothsayer.

Description:

At maturity, most mantids are large insects of 5-8 centimeters in length. Like all members of the order Dictyoptera, mantids have leathery forewings that fold over their abdomens when at rest. Mantids move slowly, and prefer walking among the branches and leaves of plants to flying from place to place.

The mantid's triangular head can rotate and swivel, even allowing it to look over its "shoulder", which is a unique ability in the insect world. Two large compound eyes and up to three ocelli between them help the mantid navigate its world. The first pair of legs, held distinctively forward, allow the mantid to catch and grasp insects and other prey.

Species in North America are typically green or brown in color. In tropical areas, mantid species come in a variety of colors, sometimes mimicking flowers.

Range and Distribution:

Over 2,300 species of mantids occur worldwide. Mantids live in both temperate and tropical climates, on every continent except Antarctica. Twenty species are native to North America. Two introduced species, the Chinese mantid (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis) and the European mantid (Mantis religiosa) are now common throughout the United States.

1. Most praying mantids live in the tropics.
Of approximately 2,000 species of mantids described to date, almost all of them inhabit the tropics. Only 18 native species are known from the entire North American continent. Also, about 80% of all members of the order Mantodea belong to a single family, the Mantidae.

2. In the U.S., the mantids we see most often are exotic species.
For better or worse, the mantids we commonly encounter in many parts of the U.S. are introduced species, not native ones. The Chinese mantis (Tenodera aridifolia) was introduced near Philadelphia, PA about 80 years ago. This large mantid can measure up to 100 mm in length, and is abundant in some northern areas of the U.S. The European mantid, Mantis religiosa is pale green, and about half the size of the Chinese mantid at maturity. This species is well established in most of the eastern U.S., since its introduction near Rochester, NY nearly a century ago.

3. Mantids are unique among insects in their ability to turn their heads a full 180 degrees.
Try to sneak up on a praying mantis, and you may be startled when it looks over its shoulder at you. No other insect can do so. Praying mantids have a flexible joint between the head and prothorax that enables them to swivel their heads. This ability, along with their rather humanoid faces and long, grasping forelegs, endears them to even the most entomophobic people among us.

4. Mantids are closely related to cockroaches and termites.
These three seemingly different insects – mantids, termites, and cockroaches – are believed to descend from a common ancestor. In fact, some entomologists group these insects in a superorder (Dictyoptera), due to their close evolutionary relationships.

5. Praying mantids overwinter as eggs in temperate regions.
The female praying mantis deposits her eggs on a twig or stem in the fall, and then protects them with a Styrofoam-like substance she secretes from her body. This forms a protective egg case, or ootheca, in which her offspring will develop over the winter. Mantid egg cases are easy to spot in the winter, when leaves have fallen from shrubs and trees. But be forewarned! If you bring a mantid ootheca into your warm home in late winter or early spring, you will probably find a few hundred teeny, tiny praying mantids crawling around your house soon after.

6. Female mantids sometimes eat their mates.
Yes, it's true, female praying mantids do cannibalize their sex partners. In some instances, she'll even behead the poor chap before they've consummated their relationship. As it turns out, a male mantid is an even better lover when his brain, which controls inhibition, is detached from his abdominal ganglion, which controls the actual act of copulation. But most instances of sexual suicide in mantids occur in the confines of a laboratory setting. In the wild, scientists believe the male partner gets munched on less than 30% of the time.

7. Mantids use specialized front legs to capture prey.
The praying mantis is so named because when waiting for prey, it holds its front legs in an upright position, as if they are folded in prayer. Don't be fooled by its angelic pose, however, because the mantid is a deadly predator. If a bee or fly happens to land within its reach, the praying mantis will extend its arms with lightning quick speed, and grab the hapless insect. Sharp spines line the mantid's raptorial forelegs, enabling it to grasp the prey tightly as it eats. Some larger mantids catch and eat lizards, frogs, and even birds. Who says bugs are at the bottom of the food chain?!

8. Mantids are relatively young, in terms of evolutionary time.
The earliest fossil mantids date from the Cretaceous Period, and are between 146-66 million years old. These primitive mantid specimens lack certain traits found in the mantids that live today. They don't have the elongate pronotum, or extended neck, of modern-day mantids and they lack spines on their forelegs.

9. Praying mantids do prey on other insects, but are not necessarily beneficial insects.
Praying mantids can and will consume lots of other invertebrates in your garden. It's important to note, however, that mantids don't discriminate between good bugs and bad bugs when looking for meals. A praying mantis is just as likely to eat a native bee that's pollinating your plants as it is to eat a caterpillar pest.

10. Mantids have binocular vision, but only one ear.
A praying mantis has two large, compound eyes that work together to help it decipher visual cues. But strangely, the praying mantis has just a single ear, located on the underside of its belly, just forward of its hind legs. This means the mantid cannot discriminate the direction of sound, nor its frequency. What it can do is detect ultrasound, or sound produced by echolocating bats. Studies have shown that praying mantids are quite good at evading bats. A mantis in flight will essentially stop, drop, and roll in midair, dive bombing away from the hungry predator. Not all mantids have an ear, and those that don't are typically flightless, so they don't have to flee flying predators like bats.

Have you ever seen one?