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Praying mantid: Scary -- if you're an aphid

With a big appetite, this garden predator also eats beneficial bugs


Praying mantid molts off its old exoskeleton and emerges as an adult. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)




Love them or hate them, this critter ranks among the scariest-looking insects in the Sacramento garden -- especially when it sheds its skeleton.

With their large forelegs, praying mantids were made to grab prey (not prayers). They're typically considered "ambush" predators, latching onto anything that happens into their path.

Their appetite for aphids makes them a garden "good girl." But they are lazy and indiscriminate hunters; they can eat beneficial insects, too. Because they like to hang around flowers, they often catch nectar- or pollen-feeding insects such as butterflies.

"As mantids consume both pests and beneficials, they are difficult to use reliably for biological control," say the UC Cooperative Extension master gardeners.

How they hunt is fascinating. Like a chameleon, they change color to blend in with their surroundings. Then, they sit and wait for unsuspecting dinner to wonder by. Their bulging eyes give them stereo vision that pinpoints their prey; their flexible little necks can spin their triangular heads almost 180 degrees.

When it's time to strike, they spring quickly into action, seizing their quarry with those monstrous forelegs.

Otherwise, they move very slowly, or not at all.

Praying mantid on a rose
The praying mantid, fresh from its old exoskeleton.
Although usually called "praying mantis," mantid is the proper name, reflecting their largest family, Mantidae . More than 2,400 species of mantids and their close relatives are known.

The species that prowls Sacramento gardens reaches about 4 inches long at maturity. It has only one generation per year.

During these late summer months, the mature adults come out in force. While hanging upside down, they molt their exoskeleton (their "skin").

"All insects molt during the immature stages as they mature," explained retired state entomologist Baldo Villegas, Sacramento's Bug Man. "There may be from three to four immature stages or molts."

During this heat wave, a mantid outside my home office window shed its exoskeleton, which looked like a ghost bug hanging on the stem beside it. The fully developed adult mantid emerged, probably hungry.

That's OK, she can have all the aphids she wants. But leave the butterflies alone.

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Garden Checklist for week of May 18

Get outside early in the morning while temperatures are still cool – and get to work!

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. Transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

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