Late posting on this. Figured I would share my encounter with a Mantis last year. Turns out she left me with a nice gift that I found later.
Mid September I had a very large Mantis on my back porch. I assume the big girl was hunting because she took 3 large crickets off tongs from me without hesitation. Not sure if I can post her eating the crickets so I will save those photos. Here she is and my hand for size reference.
She was gone the next morning. Did not give it much thought just chalked it up to a nice experience. Well winter came and then spring. Was out trimming my shrubs next to my back porch. As I was cutting a limb fell and noticed something odd on it. Climbed down off the ladder and knew exactly what it was when I seen it. It was a mantic egg sac. Not much I could do since I had already trimmed the limb. I ended up cutting as much off the egg as possible then moved it indoors.
After the egg sac was sitting on my kitchen table for a few weeks I ended up ordering a butterfly hatching enclosure to put the egg sac in. That way I did not have a kitchen full of baby mantis. I timed it just right because less than a week later I came home from work to around 100 baby mantis.
Hard to see how many there were in the photos. I ended up moving them back to the schrubs around my house. I got a few photos of them when I put them out and a few days later checking on them.
Have not seen any in the last month or so but still on the look out for them.
