“So they hatched in my house. Would you like them?” the women concluded. This was the final part of a story I heard from someone on the phone this past winter. She explained she had a house plant she kept outside during the warmer months. As temperatures dropped in the fall, she brought the plant inside. One day she woke up and there were about 100 praying mantids, smaller than a paper clip, crawling all over the plant in her living room.

Thinking that these charismatic insects would make a great display when they grew larger, I said “Sure, I’ll take them.” She collected as many as possible in a Tupperware container and someone picked them up. They were so cool! An incredibly small version of the 3-inch long green insect sometimes found in fields or gardens. Then they all died.

But I had already purchased their food- flightless fruit flies and rice flour beetles. And my curiosity about the creatures was piqued. So, after a little research, I ordered a praying mantid egg case from a company online.

Mantids lay their eggs in the fall and the eggs overwinter in a dormant state. The female lays 80-200 eggs surrounded by a foam that quickly hardens to a tan crusty blob, called an ootheca. (Add that to your Scrabble word list.)

If you didn’t know what you were looking at, the egg case may just look like dried sap on a twig or weed stem (or house plant). Or like a little patch of tan spray foam- looking soft and fluffy but upon touching, you find it hard and water repellent. When it warms up in spring (or in a 70 degree house), nymphs pour out of the little tan crusty blob. This delayed hatching makes the egg case perfect for sending in the mail to farmers, gardeners, teachers, or curious naturalists.

Why would you want an ootheca? Mantids are predators and can be a natural pest control. How effective they are is debatable. Since they will eat almost any insect they can overpower, including other mantids, they don’t exactly live close together. And I would imagine they aren’t too discerning, eating both the pests and the beneficial insects.

The two front legs of the mantids are highly specialized. When hunting, mantids fold the front legs under their head, looking like they are praying. Then they sit and wait for their prey to get close. They strike out and capture the prey with their front legs. Long spines on the upper insides of these legs allow them to hold to on their impaled meal.

So after about a month inside (a sealed small mesh container) the ootheca hatched and little mantids were swarming! It really was incredible. I separated them into several clear containers to better monitor their eating. About every other day I would open the containers and drop some flightless fruit flies in and watch. I felt a bit like a Roman throwing prisoners to the lions. The fruit fly was doomed once contained with the mantid. But having had an infestation of fruit flies in my kitchen more than once, I will admit feeling a little pleased.

Watching this small part of the food chain was dramatic. The unsuspecting fly would crawl, with some speed, around the container. But I could sense the mantid was engaged. It stopped roaming and started looking. Its front legs folded up. Its head turned side to side as the fruit fly crawled. Up, down, on no! it’s getting closer. Ah, it just missed it. Come back fruit fly. Just a little closer. You got it! I, of course, was rooting for the mantid.

There are three species of mantids commonly found in North America. The Chinese Mantid (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis), the European Mantid (Mantis religiosa) and the Carolina Mantid (Stagmomantis carolina). As their name implies, two are non-native and one resides mostly in the south. The Chinese and European species were introduced as pest control.

I wouldn’t normally include Latin names, mostly because I don’t use them on a regular basis but I wanted to address a confusing topic. Is it mantid or mantis? We generally refer to a member of this group as a praying mantis. Technically “mantis “refers to only the genus Mantis, like in the European Mantid, Mantis religiosa. Only some praying mantids belong to the genus Mantis. “Mantid” refers to the entire family of these voracious predators, of which there many. The egg case I ordered was a Chinese Mantid.

I was pleased when, after about 3 weeks I saw one praying mantid in the container and then what looked like a squished dead one. One didn’t die but the living one shed its skin also known as an exoskeleton. Mantids, like their relatives, crickets and grasshoppers, go through a gradual metamorphosis. They shed their skin about 6 times during their life, growing bigger and slowly becoming an adult.

This is not as remarkable a change as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or a tadpole to a frog. But what it meant to me was that I was doing something right since they were growing. And this is just one more piece of that large, complicated web of life that I understand a little bit more.

Audubon Nature Center is located at 1600 Riverside Road in the town of Kiantone, one-quarter mile east of Route 62 between Jamestown, N.Y., and Warren. Learn more about the Nature Center and the many programs and volunteer opportunities by visiting jamestownaudubon.org.

Katie Finch is a naturalist at Jamestown Audubon.