I've always loved these little guys, and today I hatched around 200 of them.
Talk about mass reproduction...
Anyway, they seem full of personality already: pushing eachother off of the water swab, leaping like kamikazis off of the branches, boxing at eachother like MMA fighters, but of course it's all in the genes. They were born to be powerful, assertive hunters. And even as newborns, they don't fail to show it.
I released the little hatchlings onto a butterfly bush in my yard. It took me a full hour and I only stopped when the lightning and rain began to role in, and I still have about a dozen left to release tommorow morning.
If that's not enough, I have around 150 to 300 more on the way. There's another egg case in there ready to hatch.
I'm a busy mother.
But I knew their biological mom last summer, when she waited on the bush for tiger swallowtails and moths to eat. I named her Dragon, because mantids have a true dragon-like appearance with their folded arms and arching necks. Even when I returned back from my vacation in Maine, she was still there, I remember. Fatter than before, I assumed she had recently eaten a large swallowtail.
I guess while I was away she took the opportunity to bring a male into the picture...
Anyways, her offspring are out in the world at one day old, shes got 150 to 300 on the way, and about a dozen in line for release in the morning.
I have to wake extra early before the birds begin to forage.
I want to keep one in the container for care. I left bananas outside beneath the bush to bring in some fruit flies.
Let's just pray that no night-time visiters (cough cough raccoons) come to spoil the fun.
So good night everyone, and wish me luck!
-Your fellow biologist,
Ashley Marie
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