The Mantis House

Having recently acquired 12 baby African giant mantises (Sphodromantis viridis) I came upon an interesting solution as to how to house them - my window sill. Our bedroom has an unusual double glazed window that is actually just two windows with the sill in the middle. A perfect sealed environment for some baby mantises:

I released 7 originally, and there are definitely 5 still with us, and they're getting fairly big.

This one is about the size of my fingernail, and although they are called giant mantises, they only actually grow to around 4 inches in length.

Mantises have a bit of a cannibalistic reputation but I've not seen any evidence of these juveniles attacking each other. It may just get a bit different when they reach adulthood - unless females are really well fed before meeting a male she might just bite his head off. Literally. Not that that prevents him from, erm, completing what he set out to accomplish as it were. One of the benefits of not having a brain, I suppose.

At the recent British Tarantula Society show in Coseley (see A Grand Day Out) somebody was recommending Miomantis caffra Saussure 'Johannesburg' as a great mantis to release in you house and replace spiders as the main insect predator - great to keep flies down in the kitchen. Maybe these guys might just do a similar job...