I've discovered I have three praying mantis egg sacs on one small butterfly bush in my yard. With the understanding that hundreds of babies might hatch from each of those, I'm wondering if I could clip a twig from the bush and relocate an egg sac in another of my flower beds. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you. Teresa
Answer
Hi Teresa,
That's wonderful! That tells me you have a healthy garden. The mantis egg sac is called 'Ootheca hierodula transcaucasica'. Yes, you can relocate the egg sac to another part of your garden. Clip the stem with the egg case attached and relocate to another stem or crotch in a shrub about a foot or two off the ground where there will be cover to protect the 100-200 tiny mantises that will hatch from the sac. You may want to attach the stem/case with some twine or wire to make sure it stays in place. Do not put the egg sac on the ground because ants will consume the eggs.
Amazingly, there are over 2,400 species of mantises around the world in both tropical and temperate climates and they have shown up in fossils more than a million years old! Mantises protect themselves with camouflage by blending in with their surroundings. Mantises have great vision and feed on insects. Even though they are not selective and eat good insects as well as bad, I love to see them in my garden!
Happy Gardening!
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About Linda Lillie
Linda K. Lillie is the President of Sprigs & Twigs, Inc, the premier
landscape design and maintenance, tree care, lawn care, stonework, and carpentry
service provider in southeastern Connecticut since 1997. She is a graduate of
Connecticut College in Botany, a Connecticut Master Gardener and a national
award winning landscape designer for her landscape design and landscape installation work.
