I’m looking at getting a mantis sometime in the future and the Ghost, Orchid and Thistle have caught my attention. Are any of these good for a first time owner?

I found my first mantis early November of last year, she laid her ootheca 4 weeks into me having her and passed away two weeks later...I didn't think any mantids would hatch and I planned to just have the ootheca on display for memories, but today a few baby mantids came out of it...I'm so confused because I could've sworn her ootheca was infertile as I had her for 4 weeks indoors with no other mantids, and I looked up and read it only takes about 2 weeks for them to lay their ootheca...could she have mated before I brought her in, or could it take 4 weeks for a mantis to lay their ootheca? Or is this a case of parthenogenesis? Only a few of them hatched, and I don't know exactly what her breed was to determine this so I'm very confused...

This is Bobby. He only eats his food when it’s running around free and is literally touching him. He refuses to eat mealworms or dubia roaches. He only wants crickets. (Don’t worry I breed them myself there is very little risk of them having parasites.)is there any way I can tweezer train him or smth or is he just rlly picky. He’s a giant Asian mantis btw and a pre sub adult that just freshly molted a couple days ago

Our budwings abdomen has been quite large despite not eating for about 5 days. Lastnight she became lethargic so we fed her a small blue bottle thinking maybe she didn’t have energy because she hadn’t eaten. This morning she’s still very lethargic. Based off research she may be laying an ooth soon, but we can’t find much of a “symptom” list.

So I brought a wild caught Carolina mantis in last winter to live out her days but before that she had laid eggs on one of my planters. I brought it in my garage so it wouldn't freeze, but would overwinter. I recently brought it back outside as the weather warms and the frost point has passed but today I noticed it broke loose from the planter.

It's still intact but I know the orientation can be really important. Is there any way to safely reattach it? Is there anything I can do to save the babies Gamora worked so hard to make?

Just fed Calvin, and you can see right through him! Very interesting, and hopefully normal? He's a Rhombodera Megaera.

This little guy enjoyed ufc. 🙂