European Mantis Nymph

Lovely series! This mantis reminds me more of a Chinese Mantid though. It seems that they occasionally have a very small dark spot in the armpit area. The dark marks on the front part of the leg are consistent with the markings that I see with other Chinese Mantids. Here is my spotting of an adult (brown phase) Chinese Mantid: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/14000195 If you look at the second picture you will see the dark markings. Here is a green one from Bugguide: http://bugguide.net/node/view/557647/bgimage Either way, I would love to see this in the Marvelous Mantids of the North East mission: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/15738247

Encourage his presence. He will keep your bed of plants relatively bug free. You can tease him a bit also with a small twig; but don't let the tig touch him.