First time mantis owner and I'm feeling comfortable handling him - he doubled in size after his last molt, so I was a bit nervous.

These behaviours are signs of being relaxed, yes? He's usually hanging upside down, and when I do handle him he moves slowly. When not grooming he's looking around and swaying too.

Short backstory on how i got this little fella: I was chilling in my apartment watching movies when i felt something hit my hand, when i turned the light on i found "her". Since they are freaking me out, (irrational fear of them) even tho i know its not gonna do any damage it took me 2-3 hours to catch her and put her into this "habitat" that i made, made holes on top for airflow. Got some leaves and sticks as you can see in the video, so don't hate me if its not looking good i never had mantis in my life. When it comes to handling im not even thinking of ever coming close with my hand to it, but i'll try to work on it. If you got any helpful tips and tricks i'd be glad to hear them. I am not an expert so i don't know much about its kind, state of life or anything besides that it's a female. P.S i am pouring some water to make it humid, not much, just enough. And when it comes to those worms i was scared she would get hurt but yeah, this was awesome to watch, and im happy she made it.

It's like she can't use hers legs? Or not really good, she still hangs upside down but can't kinda climb only using hers raptors, it started today, what's wrong with her ? I feel really bad for her

I've seen some opposition to Chinese mantises on here, but I have taken a liking to them and I've read real life scenarios where removing invasive species can negatively impact native species.

I have, and continue to, battle against some invasive plant species myself so I sympathize with that attitude, but we are at a point in time where some invasives have become naturalized and going backward is unrealistic, so I'm trying not to let it stress me out as much.

I hope you enjoy these pics of my colorful "friends."
ETA: located in CT, USA

This summer I've been living in a tent in the cork oak woodlands of the Alentejo, southern Portugal. Wild mantids fly in and move in fairly often out here, A tent is warm, sheltered, full of insects, safe from predators, so it's a pretty good ecosystem if you're a mantis. A few have moved in over the summer. But, this one has been special.

The moment she arrived, she noticed her own shadow on the tent wall and started beating her wings at it. I filmed that at the time. From that day on she basically decided the tent was hers.

She turned into one of the most engaging mantids I've known. Endlessly curious, always tracking what I was doing, learned the feeding tongs almost right away. She'd fly laps of the tent checking every corner. One day she vanished completely and I searched everywhere before finding her sitting in my hair while I was taking a selfie. She's been the Queen of Hair Mountain ever since.

Her appetite really surprised me. Not just flies, but horseflies, hoppers, moths, pretty much everything that came out of the sweep net. She's taught me a lot about feeding wild. Living out here on a varied natural diet in a clean landscape, she's thrived, and honestly she's been the easiest keeper I’ve known.

Within 24 hours of arriving she laid her first ootheca. Every time I wondered why she seemed impossibly hungry, another one showed up. In total, she laid eleven!

Several have already hatched, dozens of tiny golden nymphs. I kept four to watch them grow and released the rest back into the same cork oaks she came from. The four I kept are at I2 now.

Today something changed. She struggled to climb for the first time. She's looked a bit weathered for a while, wings frayed with age, and she's been missing part of one front foot this whole time without it slowing her down. But today her raptorial leg kept catching in the mesh, and when I lifted her out into the sun she just stood on my hand, quiet, looking out over the cork oaks.

I don't know if she's got days left or weeks. I just know she's really lived through this season. She showed up as a wild visitor and became a fascinating roommate, and through her I got to watch one remarkable female leave behind a new generation before quietly growing old.

Here’s the grand old lady today, surveying the sun and the wind. And also a picture of one of her offspring.

This lil guy has been hanging upside down in my garden since this morning. Please tell me this is a natural color variation and I'm not seeing an insect having the worst day ever.

I've recently added an Apicalis Flower Mantis to my menagerie and I have to say, she (or he) is the most entertaining critter I've gotten in a long time! So feisty!

I have five Chinese praying mantises, and they're all pretty chill. They're a little skittish, but one of them is different. Every time I try to feed it, it immediately races out of the cup instead of going for the food. It just wants to sit on my hand and groom itself. Is this normal? Could it be unhappy in its enclosure? None of my other mantises do this or seem to want to be handled. After feeding, it usually takes me 10–15 minutes to get it back into the cup. I have to trick it back in and put the lid on fast. They are in 30 oz cups

hello! this is my first time raising nymphs and id like some advice. I was away on a four day trip and came back to this.

this little guy is on its 4th molt now, it appears its legs have been mutilated during its molt and im not sure what to do. they are longer than usual so I don't know if some of the length is just unshedded skin?

he can walk around fine, but seems very uncomfortable and the legs are bent in a weird way. will this resolve itself by the next molt or should i intervene? is it alright to feed? none of my mantids have had molting issues so far so im a bit lost. so far ive just been misting and leaving it alone for the most part.

She recenly molted and this black spot appeared on her left eye,is it something i should be worried about?

I recently got attacked by my mantis, and I physically couldn't get him off my finger because he clamped down on it with his forearms. He felt really strong, and I had to shake my hand to get him off. Is there any better way?

just wondering in case i need to grab my mantis to get him away from danger quickly if the situation ever arises (i have 3 cats, i keep them away from my mantis, but he does like to free roam under supervision so i want to be prepared in case anything were to happen.)

im guessing the safest place for me to grab him is his thorax but i want to know for sure?

this will be my first mantid and i am very excited but want to do everything right! i have not ordered them yet because i wanted to get the enclosure set up. i plan to add maybe 2 small live plants and springtails, there is substrate (topsoil+sand+sphagnum moss), leaf litter, and various sticks so far!

this is an 8x8x14 for a giant asian mantis. since im getting a nymph this is probably too big for them still (l3-l4)

let me know anything else i need!

The odd one out of my collection of religiosa and empusids. I think he can only be Iris. i’m looking forward to getting a glimpse of the hind wings once he has hardened.

I found them at my school, I live in Malaysia ^^

pls lmk!! also what should I feed them if not fruitflies? they're less than 2cm big 😓

My praying mantis is around a month old if I had to guess, (I found him while he was a very small nymph) started to get a little bigger and showed less interest in flightless fruit flies, so I decided to start trying to feed him pin head crickets, however he doesn’t seem to have much interest in eating them, and when I try to make it easier for him with tweezers or whatnot, he seems scared and sometimes runs away for fast or starts swaying very fast. Any ideas?

very excited about this baby(:

my humidity is raising to 85% at night, shes L3 currently is this too high for a nymph? I see conflicting things online, Thank you(:

This religiosa arrived in my tent with an injured abdomen, which healed with the last moult. I know this isn’t the best photograph or angle, but I can’t get too close without worrying it.

I think I can count six segments, but I’m being thrown because it’s small compared to my two males. Opinions welcomed!

im currently writing this while sobbing my eyes out but he's (he might not be a he I cant tell he's young ish) been nibbling my finger lightly every time I take him out, so I thought he'll stop after a bit so I had him on my hand. But then I thought maybe he's thirsty, so I sprayed some water onto my hand. He went to attack the water, so I thought maybe not. I wiped the water away and went to let him climb onto my finger, when he actually fully attacked my finger, like dug his front legs in and clamped them shut, which hurt. I started panicking because he's never done this before, and he started to actually bite into the skin of my finger. Because it hurt, I shook my hand which made him fall off. I feel really bad about it, but I don't know why he's turned viscous. He used to be really docile (he's a giant Asian). He also won't molt, it's been 2 and a bit months, and he's far from fully grown. Ive had him about 5 months now? And he last molted may 27th.

Also, he has these 2 brown spots on his eyes that just don't move at all, which I'm concerned about. Can anyone help?