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My spellcheck is telling me that mantisis is plural for mantis, but it seems to me that it should be “manti.”
Ladybugs and mantises were released into Redwood Valley on Saturday. I think ladybugs are native, but are mantisis?
Slow news day locally. There was a riot in Pelican Bay.
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June 29, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Mr. Nice
Ladybugs are both native and not native. It is sort of hard to tell like lupine or blackberry and similar things where the natives look like the invasives. The bastard kind, Harmonia axyridi, are released on purpose by the U.S. government and will make the interior of your house into their breeding ground as well as taking food and shelter away from native insect predators. Screw these things. The popular garden store kind is Hippodamia convergens, but these will compete with the various native ladybug species and have been blamed for a decrease in native populations.
There are several other species of ladybugs you can get, but most of them are a drab brown or black. The coolest ladybug species are almost all boring looking.
If you are interested in attracting ladybugs, grow dandelions. Seriously. If you let a bed of dandelions go, you will have tens of thousands of ladybugs in no time.
It’s praying mantises, mantids, mantes, or mantiseseses. Manti? What about boyti? Womanti?
There are a couple of species that you can get very easily. The $10 one is Mantis religiosa (European praying mantis). Stagmomantis californica can be picked up during the Winter from empty lots in californication… I mean SoCal.
There are also various huge ass African and South East Asian species that you can get as pets that you are not supposed to release into your backyard as they will kill rats and hummingbirds and whatnot. If you have a pest problem, totally get the exotic kinds that you are not supposed to get as they will go kill/maim gophers. Just don’t go admitting it… erm… nevermind, I mean, don’t get these.
June 29, 2009 at 12:34 pm
milt
Spellcheque sometymes can bee rawng . The map there indicates that mantids, or mantises, are not native to this area.
OMG, what are they doing? Introducing another invasive species?
This could have a disastorous effect on our economy .
June 29, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Mr. Nice
Omg praying mantiseseses attacking Reggae.
June 29, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Laisseraller
Great story! New bog on the Hx. of the Ladybug:
http://historyoftheladybug.blogspot.com/
June 30, 2009 at 5:56 am
Fred Mangels
I bought and released ladybugs a number of times back in my vegetable gardening days. I can’t say they helped at all with the aphid population in our back yard. Not only did we still have aphids, but I never once saw a ladybug eat any of them or even near them. I’ve seen photos of ladybugs eating aphids, though.
June 30, 2009 at 6:51 am
Carol
I released ladybugs a couple of weeks ago and the aphids are mostly gone now.
June 30, 2009 at 8:10 am
Fred Mangels
Well, I never saw any improvement in my garden.
June 30, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Mr. Nice
You needed more dandelions or white cosmos or some other bright flowers to keep their interest. It isn’t the store-bought ladybugs that do most of the pest eradication, it is their developing offspring. If they decide to breed in your tweaker neighbor’s 4 foot dandelion yard, they will be eating tweaker aphids instead of yours.
July 1, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Ben
I have seen mantids in SoHum right in town. Probably introduced. I once worked for a filmmaker who specialized in bugs and made a movie called ” Manti” or something like that. It sorta bombed.
July 1, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Eric Kirk
Can’t imagine why!
July 2, 2009 at 6:25 am
milt
Ben
I have seen mantids in SoHum right in town.
Were they praying for rain?