#mr. mantis

Mr. Bumblebee: depends what do you mean by strange Centipede?

Mr. Centipede: well I mean the kid seems happy

Miss Ladybug: and why is that so strange?

Mr. Centipede: because he's a little...too happy it's strange

Mr. Mantis: I agree with Centipede he tends to be more distracted by..something almost like he's daydreaming look *points at Jabee*

Mr. Bumblebee: ...eh the boy just seems happy nothing strange about that

He gobbled up the bean beetle last night with no problem. I read online that they should feed often, though, so I set to work catching more bugs wherever I saw them. I had a fly this morning, but it escaped my tweezers and idk where it went. Then I offered him a fruit fly, but he was confused and kept attacking the tweezers and not the fly on the end (the fly was very very small.)

But then a bigass stink beetle flew into the rangehood over the stove. While harmless, they have a self-defense of sticking really bad, so I didn't want it in the house anyway. I caught the thing and offered it to Mr. Mantis... and he wouldn't touch it. He tentatively, half-assedly lashed out at it, but otherwise walked away from it numerous times. Maybe even mantids know not to bother stinkbugs. Still, it couldn't fly anymore after being held by tweezers, so I left it in the tomato plant in case Mr. Mantis changed his mind.

Coming back from class, I caught a very loud little grasshopper that was buzzing in the grass. I thought for sure this is the kind of thing mantids eat. Well, I held the grasshopper out to Mr. Mantis, and he seemed interested... but did not attempt to eat it. At all. I guess he's not hungry? Idk.

I read online that mantids need to be kept moist or provided a way to drink. BUT, you can't just put a bowl of water where they are because they can drown, apparently. And seeing as I don't have a misting bottle, I gently poured water over my tomato plant, intentionally pouring a little stream on the mantis himself. He flinched but once he realized it was water he licked it off all his arms.

When I looked closer, a big droplet of water had formed on the branch above him. He leaned towards it and proceeded to drink down the entire droplet over a course of a few minutes - a droplet many times bigger than his own head! I didn't think they could drink that much in one sitting, wow. 

I guess I will have to "water" my mantis daily and continue to find him bugs outside to eat. But this is fine, I have found a way to have a pet without breaking the apartment rules :P

(And in case anyone is wondering - no, it's not illegal to keep a native mantis as a pet, as most of ours are not endangered. It's illegal to keep the asian mantids as a pet. And he would likely perish in the coming cold weather anyway because nowhere online did it say they can survive a winter.)

I found a (now confirmed to be) male Carolina praying mantis, flying into the walls repeatedly in the stairwell to my building. I thought "no way are you going to get very far doing that," so now he's been living in my tomato plant. Although he disappeared this morning and wasn't found until my roommates turned on the vacuum cleaner, which scared him out of his hiding place and into the window apparently.

He's a mottled brown with a green underside and green legs. Green eyes with pupils that look right at you. About 3 inches long. I know it's a male, now, because he has a very long thin abdomen, compared to a female's short, football-shaped abdomen. Which is good, in a way, because females can lay thousands of eggs, and idk how I'd deal with that come spring...