I’ve had several people ask me about the praying mantis cocoon and if the babies have hatched. It’s been almost two months since I posted about purchasing the cocoon, and I had all but given up on anything actually happening. I was sure we had gotten a dud!

However, The Renaissance Man kept telling me to be patient and that “things were happening.” I’m not sure if he actually knew things were happening or if he was just trying to distract me. But sure enough, on Wednesday afternoon I got a text message from him with a picture of a baby praying mantis hanging out on the cocoon. They hatched!!!

When I finally made it home from work, I set my stuff down, grabbed my camera and headed straight to the backyard. The more I started looking, the more and more mantis nymphs I could see. They were everywhere in our apple tree! Just follow the outline of the leafs and in the picture below and anytime you see a little stick figure, that’s another mantis! I count twenty-five…how many did you get?

Our tree was covered with baby nymphs! We had at least a hundred or so, and it was both fascinating and creepy all at the same time. We shook a few of the branches and moved some of the nymphs to other fruit trees in our backyard; hopefully we’ll see them around this summer and notice a difference in the amount of aphids trying to attack our plants.

This is my favorite photo! The nymphs are so small and active, that I had a very hard time photographing them with just my standard camera lens. But isn’t this just magical looking?

I think summer has arrived!