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There's a praying mantis on my vft

I walked outside to check on my VFTs this morning and as I was cuddling them, I noticed that there was this rather large praying mantis on my oldest flytrap!  This flytrap having some sort of trap deformation problem, alarms went off in my head because I thought that this little bugger might be munching on my plant.

However, a quick search on Google calmed my fears by revealing that the praying mantis eats bugs and such - like aphids!

So... hopefully this mantis is eatting the icky aphids that I'm convinced are eatting my plant, and all shall be well.  I just hope that the mantis knows what he's doing, and doesn't trigger a trap =P

Oh - and here are some photos (will open in new windows):
Photo 1
Photo 2

*pats his newly found mantis*
 
I love mantids, Sometimes I even buy egg cases and stick them out in my yard!
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I don't think they would eat aphids though, only when they're babies, when there big they will eat flies and stuff that your plants could have ate
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Oh, how CUTE! I love mantids. I should buy an egg case and set 'em loose in the yard....
 
I love mantids! I wish you could get them in the U.K!
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That's awesome. Mantids are so cool.
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You can get them in the UK starman! There all over the place! I found a place!The place
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Awww....he's so cute...and taste looking...wait...ignore that last comment.
 
Mantids are awesome insects.

I have found a few in the past in m yard. Whenever there around, I wack a few wasps and hand feed them.
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(A fun experience.)
 
They are all around my yard and they're bigger then the whole plant! I once was watching one, and all the sudden it caught a big grasshopper and ate it live! It was kind of cruel but cool at the same time.
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  • #10
Hey Snugluz,

Your plant looks pretty big - I was wondering how old it is? I'm new to growing VFT's and mine are mostly pretty small, so I want to know how long before I can expect them to get as sturdy looking as yours. Also, I have a bunch of little to medium sized ones in a pot, but I think that after dormancy (or maybe after the next dormancy) I will put them in individual pots. The pictures I've seen of large plants all seem to have their own pots.

Thanks for the info.
 
  • #11
[b said:
Quote[/b] (peter @ June 18 2004,1:57)]They are all around my yard and they're bigger then the whole plant! I once was watching one, and all the sudden it caught a big grasshopper and ate it live!  It was kind of cruel but cool at the same time.
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I was going to post the link I found last year.  It was to a site where a guy had posted a picture he had taken of a praying mantis........eating a humingbird it caught.  Darn link doesn't work and I didn't save the pic onto my computer
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.  If I find it again I'll post it here, but I think the page is gone for good.
 
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