Praying Mantis Egg Case (Ootheca)

This is the Chinese (Tenodera sinensis) ootheca, also called an egg case. We also offer the Carolina (Stagmomantis carolina) mantis egg.

The Chinese mantis will reach 3-5 inches when fully grown and ranges in color from green to light brown. It has naturalized in this country, living here since the 1800s.

This mantis lives in a large part of the country and is widely used for garden pest control. Each case (ootheca) hatches over 100 specimens each, sometimes as many as 300! Mantises will hatch after 3-8 weeks of warm weather. We recommend either hanging the egg case in a shady area of your garden among the plant foliage OR keeping the egg case in one of our praying mantis enclosures and raising them as pets. Please see our FAQ PAGE for lots of information.

It is important that you have food on hand when the egg case hatches (unless releasing them into your garden). Here at The Praying Mantis Shop, we stock a full line of living praying mantis food, from food for newborns to food for mature adults. Once you've added this to your cart, please check for fruit flies on our main menu. Get the melanogaster to start with. We recommend getting food with the egg case because it can hatch in as soon as a week or two. Many people are caught off guard without food. However, hatching may take as long as two months and the fruit fly culture will not last that long.