Every year I'm always fascinated to see the different mantids that live among my gardens.
We get yellow jackets bad in my area and the mantids eliminate many yellow jackets since they fly near the house and flowers constantly.
As they get close to maturing or as adults I am able to put a piece of can cat food chunk (turkey or chicken flavor) on a toothpick and hand feed the mantids that aren't catching enough food, at one point I had over 20 mantis in one garden at the same time! Now my gardens are full of eggs for next year!

I didn't take any photos but I'd love to see any Mantis you find, and if you know the species. Here are the 5 species I see:

Chinese Mantis (Tenodera sinensis)- Common
Japanese Giant Mantis (Tenodera aridifolia)- Uncommon
Tenodera angustipennis- Common
European Mantis (Mantis religiosa) - Uncommon
Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina)- Rare

These are very beneficial insects; and I encourage everyone to provide habitat for them. They are known for cleaning out bad "bugs" in the gardens. This photo is from my daylily garden last year. Mantises are used extensively in organic applications instead of harmful sprays and chemicals.

No mantids at this time, but here are some file photos I took before when they are here from Spring onwards:

May 2016 to October 2016


December 2016


May 2017 to September 2017

Do birds eat them? I haven't seen one in years here in zone 9 but I have lots of birds in my back yard. Another garden favorite I haven't seen in years are what we call banana spiders. I've always called them Charlottes. If either of these can be bought will someone tell me where? Appreciate it, Trudy

@tabbycat https://www.insectlore.com/liv...

Keith, here's mine. Not sure of variety. The pics on the Hoya are of a mating pair.

Mantid vs. Spider - it seems the spider won this bout then
July 2017

Neat pic, Tarev! I'll bet that doesn't happen very often!

Yes you are right, but correct me if I am wrong: I believe that what we call the "native " mantis is also an import.

Frillylily said:That may be true, there are several kinds and I am not familiar w identifying them. I only know the chinese one and it gets huge here in my garden and I know it eats things I don't want ate. So I kill them. The other mantis in my yard stay much smaller so I have not noticed issues with them. I grow fennel and had lots of swallowtails in the past before I started noticing small piles of their wings and strongly suspect this mantis after reading about them. I became interested in learning more about the chinese one after seeing a mantis in my yard at least 5 inches long and I had never seen one that large before.

I went on several accredited bug Id websites, and it is hard to tell the differences, especially when you are pursuing one at a breakneck speed through your garden! Even though the Chinese does get a little bigger, the Carolina does have the ability to grow to a large size, especially the females.All female mantis are bigger than the males. I am no entomologist but I would hazard a guess that far more butterflies are killed by cars, cats, dogs, etc. and suffer death due to their brief life span than are killed by mantises. It might appear that mantises kill a lot of butterflies because you might find a lot of wings in your garden: that would be indicating the mantises are killing butterflies in a particular location: your garden, but I think the numbers of butterflies killed by mantises overall is a lower figure. I think the benefit of mantises are much greater than the risk of losing
butterflies. I observed a medium sized mantis in my cutting garden two
summers ago catching and eating a painted lady, which is a common butterfly in my area. I watched, horrified but yet fascinated as it cut the wings off and ate the body. I watched this mantis for two days then began removing it to another location. It would return to the cosmos, but I was persistent, and it decided to stay away. Mantis are like any predator; they go for the easiest prey. Believe me, it is not easy for a mantis to catch a butterfly! They prefer smaller, slower moving prey. I too grow a lot of fennel
along with parsley and dill for the BSTs. I raised 33 + last summer, and I was able to observe them from the day the eggs were laid until the day they emerged from their chrysalis. I never saw any predation from a mantis, although they are abundant in my garden. As far as I know, BSTs are not in danger from population decline, as the Monarchs are. No self respecting predator would eat a Monarch because of the taste.

I don't want this to turn into a debate, but know if the Chinese mantis was any real threat to anything nobody would sell them. The hummingbird incident is rare and not any concern to our wildlife. Plenty of things eat mantids so a balance is in check and even the European mantis can eat Chinese and vice versa.
Being the species can look very similar killing any you might be killing the wrong species, all mantis are welcome in my garden. European mantis can kill butterflies too, mainly the females.

@gardenfish I think that might be a female Carolina mantis, they are rare by me but they sometimes get pretty color morphs. I've heard yellow, tan, blue, and white found; as well as gray, and green the common colors.

Thanks, Keith, I thought she was a Carolina, too. I don't know if you looked at the pic of the mating pair on the Hoya, and it is hard to tell from the pic, but what I observed was a big Carolina female( not the big one in the pic posed on the chair) mating with what I identified as a Chinese male, or what I thought was a Chinese male. Do you know if they cross breed? I would guess yes due to their remarkable physical similarity, but not always the case concerning genetics.

@gardenfish That looks like a male Carolina mating with her. Chinese males are larger and lighter brown. They would not be able to hybridize and different mantis species give off different pheromones so it only attracts their own species.

This brings up the question of the word "invasive". What exactly does that mean? As gardeners we use the word for certain plants; now the trend is to use this word for certain insect species. It is now accepted that the word invasive cannot be used state wide, country wide or even world wide for any particular species, variety or cultivar of any plant or any insect. The so called invasive plant lists circulating now contain many plants that when grown in certain areas, behave very nicely; in other areas, a horrible menace. The same logic would apply to insects. The word invasive can only be applied to certain plants and certain insects within a specific locality: a state, a portion of a state, a county, or someone's own garden. Do the research, and don't state generalities.