Disclosure- We received a Pop Up Port-A-Bug and Live Praying Mantis Egg Case to facilitate our review. We received no other compensation and all opinions are 100% our own.
Last year we reviewed Insect Lore’s Ladybug Land and my girls saw that they also had praying mantises to hatch and observe. We had to wait until Spring because that is when it is praying mantis season and Insect Lore can ship the egg case safely. My girls were so excited when we received the Pop Up Port-A-Bug Case and Live Praying Mantis Egg Case.
It was a little confusing at first to figure out how to set the egg case up inside the port-a-bug case but I went online and found pictures of what to do. Once I went outside and found the perfect twig to put the egg case on, it was easy. It said to keep the egg case off the bottom of the container so I taped a twig with 2 “legs” going down so the egg case would rest in it above the bottom of the container. We sprayed the container with a mist of water once in a while and kept the container in a warm area of our house. In a few weeks my older daughter came running upstairs to tell me that our egg case had hatched a ton of baby praying mantises, also called nymphs. She wasn’t kidding!
The Port-A-Bug case was filled with tons of these amazing insects. They were so cute! Yes, I said an insect was cute. They were fun to watch. We kept the praying mantises in the Port-A-Bug case for a few days and then released most of them into our yard as the directions said. (Otherwise they would each each other since they eat insects.) We then caught some moths and other bugs to feed our remaining praying mantises.
Unfortunately our praying mantises didn’t seem to like what we caught for them. We checked on them the next day and the moths and other bugs were dead inside the container as were the praying mantises. Of all of the insects we have hatched (ladybugs, butterflies, and praying mantises) the praying mantises were the hardest to maintain because you need to find food ie. other bugs for them to eat or they will eat each other. We weren’t really prepared for them to hatch when they did. My grandmother had just passed away, things were crazy around here, so finding bugs outside to feed them was difficult some days. I didn’t think to check with a pet store for insects but I just read another post where the person bought insects from the pet store to feed their praying mantises. That would have made feeding them much easier. Overall it was a fun and educational experience for all of us. I would like to hatch some praying mantises again with my girls soon and this time have food on hand from the pet store so hopefully we’ll be able to keep them through adulthood this time. Wish us luck! Meanwhile my girls are enjoying using the Port-A-Bug to catch other insects.
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Never, but my boys would love to.
I hatched butterflies with my daughter and it was awesome.