Praying Mantis Egg Case (Ootheca) - Carolina

We offer the egg case of both the Chinese (Tenodera sinensis) & Carolina (Stagmomantis carolina) mantis.

The Carolina praying mantis reaches 2 - 2.5 inches when full grown and ranges in color from dusty gray to brown and green. The Carolina is native to the U.S. and other parts of North America.

The Carolina Mantis lives in a large part of the country and is used for garden pest control. Each case (ootheca) hatches over 100 specimens each and as many as 300! Mantis nymphs will hatch from this egg case 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, you'll want to order food soon after in case the egg hatches early. Better safe than sorry. Get the melanogaster wingless fruit flies to start with. Please note- the egg case may take as long as two months to hatch, and your fly culture may have expired by then.