Parenthood, of a different sort

Since I am in a bit of denial that tomorrow is the LAST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!!!!, I thought I'd back track a bit to last fall when we welcomed Max and Ruby into our household. Max and Ruby were praying mantids that we caught just as the summer was coming to an end. They lived with us all fall. We fed them crickets and meal worms. It was pretty fascinating to watch them devour their prey. Then one day, much to our surprise, they both laid egg sacs! We came home and there they were. This was more than we bargained for! Thanks to youtube and a lot of library books, we learned everything we could about praying mantids so we weren't surprised when both Maxine (she had to have a slight name adjustment) and Ruby died in the late fall - the fate of a female praying mantis post birth.

We waited patiently all winter and spring to see what might happen to the sacs. As the weather heated up in the last two weeks, we figured it was possible but not likely that the sacs would actually produce babies. Then, a few days ago, Z glanced at the bug jar on Penelope's bedside stand and thought it looked a bit dirty. He looked closer - BABIES! MANY OF THEM! LIKE MAYBE MORE THAN 100! WOW!

We were not up to the task of caring for 100 praying mantids, which apparently involves fruit flies and hamburger pieces on a piece of thread. So, as quickly as the arrived, they left. We let them go in the field where we their mother's had first conceived them. It's not that easy to capture these little guys on film but see for yourself.

A portion of the bug catcher covered with them.



Free at last on Daddy's shirt & finger.




Their new home.