European Mantis

Awesome! Thanks for adding the second image and adding this to the Mantid mission!

Oh, I almost forgot... This would be a nice addition to the Marvelous Mantids of the North East mission: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/15738247

Welcome to Project Noah! It's hard to tell from this angle which species this is. It is either a Chinese Mantid or a European Mantis. Most of the spottings I have seen in your area (on Project Noah) are of the European Mantis, Mantis religiosa. If you have any other views, that might be helpful for ID purposes. The European Mantis has distinctive spots on the inside of the front legs near the body. It is usually a black dot with a white center like this: http://bugguide.net/node/view/341867 or sometimes just black without the white: http://bugguide.net/node/view/323166 Here is the link to the Bugguide page for Mantis religiosa: http://bugguide.net/node/view/22947