I was passing by a bush today amd saw a mantis that was almost crushed by an onslaught of kids. Being the mantis fanatic that I was I picked it up and rescued it. I have owned two mantises before and this one was pretty young so I immediately set up a critter cage that used to have caterpillars in it. I thought I would start a mantis journal. They are quite likeable insects after all.

So I made the mistake of letting it out before I got out of the car. Bad idea. It took me five minutes to catch it. I temporarily housed it in a net whie I did some errands. It has a really feisty temper, unike my previous mellow mantii. A lot of clawing here. Worse than a cat.

It looks quite young and probably has a good five months to go.

The critter cage is quite small but I purposely chose a two gallon due to the fact that mantii do not need a lot of space. The bigger the enclosure is the harder it is for the mantii to find food.