Drake - made it to L2. First time one of my mantises ever molted. Then preceded to die when I couldn't figure out what to feed a L2 nymph.
Selena II - died in L1 when I left her and Drake out in the backyard during a rainstorm and her cage filled up with water
Jones - escaped
Lotus - escaped
Jane - drowned
Akyla and Andrew were the two male L7 nymphs I discovered near Nansen. I remember nothing about Andrew other than that he was clearly released well before Nan and Akky's second mating. Akyla was my second successful molt mantis. The account of the one real story about Akyla is recorded in full on Nansen's gravestone. I put him and Nansen together, they mated, and then they did not separate. Eventually, Nansen apparently forgot that Akyla was there and started climbing up a filing cabinet. I ended up going to sleep whilst they were wandering the filing cabinet still fused together. I didn't see Akyla again for about a week, when he turned up on the wall by the stairs.
A couple days after that, I released him onto a mountain laurel tree in our backyard.
Titus is much like Andrew, only my brother found him as an adult.
Cleo Amanda, Mandy and Chloe were the three green Europeans we had alongside the more memorable pets of 2019. I remember almost nothing about them. They were all released back into the wild late in 2019. They were all found as adults and I was never particularly interested in any of them. Mandy was technically Lily's, not mine.
Taymin was a beautiful pale brown mantis. I found her near the propane tanks while weed whacking. I don't remember much about her, except that she was my most mantis-aggressive pet that year. She tried to kill Akyla and she snuck up on Akyla. The Akyla one I could understand, since she didn't seem to be a fan of his attempts to climb on top of her, but Nansen was just standing there, sick, a few inches away from her. Taymin never passed up a chance for a meal.
I eventually released Taymin (European) into the backyard out of guilt.
A young nymph in 2018. I don't remember anything else about her. She was Leafers' daughter.
Six yellow mantises I found by a bike trail shortly after Rachel's vanishing act, then promptly released because I just couldn't take care of six mantises at once. Their names were Cornelia, McKenna, Virginia (Ginny), Georgia (Gia), Carmen, and anther whose name I can't recall. Actually, Carmen was golden. She was beautiful.
I couldn't keep up with taking care of them all, so I placed them on the tree by our balcony and let them pull a Rachel reminiscent disappearing act.
The three males who came to Rachel's cage when I left her outside overnight. We only had them for a few days - Micheal and Micah both died in their cages out on the balcony a few days after finding them, and I blamed the heat. In the aftermath, I released Miles.
FTR, Micah mated with Rachel. The eggs never hatched.
After the death of Ivy, my final 2017 mantis, I lost all interest in mantises. I didn't think about them much, except when sitting by the graves of my 2017 girls (plus the token male).
I found Rachel in the thyme bush outside our house. I'm not sure what I was doing there, but all of a sudden I spotted a triangular head, and then I saw the whole rather large lime green body.
I mostly remember Rachel for two incidents. The first one was when I put her out on our balcony in a mesh cage, and in the morning, there was a green male mantid on her cage. The next morning, there were two. I put it down to pheromones and figured it was to be expected.
Later, she mated with Micah, one of those three males. Her egg didn't hatch regardless. I'm still not sure what I did wrong; I basically just left it to the elements.
Actually, there's a third incident that's pretty memorable. One time, I was out on our balcony, and for fun, I placed Rachel on the tree right next to our balcony. Every time she tried to climb out of reach, I grabbed her and pulled her back. After a while, she got the gist and stopped moving. After about an hour, I went inside and watched Return of the Jedi. When I came back out, she was still there.
I tried this again a couple of days later, this time without the hour long period of "No! You stay here!"
Rachel vanished.
Ivy is my mantis horror story - the one thing I should never do ever again.
Every year at my grandmother's house, there is a Halloween party. We went in 2017 just like in any other year.
During the party, my mom, who had been at the hospital with my younger brother, called my grandmother to say that my brother had leukemia and we were going to be staying at Grandma's house for about a week. Ivy was at home alone, and I didn't bother to ask Dad to bring me home for a few minutes so I could grab her - which I could easily have done.
The predictable result is that Ivy died sometime a few days after Halloween 2017, probably from dehydration. Never again.
Honestly, I don't remember much about Maple. She was my younger sister Lillian's mantis, anyway. She lived in a yogurt container and I always felt she was kind of cramped. She was your typical run of the mill green mantis.
The one and only male mantis of 2017. My friend Violet and I were standing in some park, when Violet spotted a flying insect landing on a wall nearby us. We ran over to investigate, and it was a mantis. Violet named him Sparkles.
Sparkles, unlike the green girls, was bright golden. I've seen only one mantis since who was actually golden.
It never occurred to me, somehow, to try breeding any of the females with him. He just sort of hung around on the table with them, living in a mango jar and eating flies.
Sparkles died before Halloween 2017.
I always picture Leafers as my most motherly, protective mantis. This is specifically rooted in one incident: I took a look into Leafers' cage and she was suddenly paper thin. She'd been fairly plump the day before, so I was sort of staring at her trying to figure out why the sudden change when I noticed the egg sac right next to her. I reached in and tried to pick her up, and she whirled around and snapped my finger in a way that wasn't at all normal for her.
I put it down to maternal aggression and left her alone. As it turns out, mantises don't exhibit maternal aggression. And in the one other case I've heard of in which it did, it turned out that it was actually a symptom of some deadly disease that had happened to coincide with the mantid's pregnancy.
I just like to think that Leafers was different. Allie was certainly different.
Leafers was a gift from my Valiant Girls teacher, Sister Ramirez. I had been talking about my interest in mantids in class for a while, and she caught one at her house, so she figured I would like it. She gave Leafers to me in a red Solo cup with plastic wrap over the top at church. I was originally going to name her Amy, or perhaps it was Rachel, but ultimately I ended up naming her Leafers after a Khan Academy avatar.
Leafers died sometime before Halloween 2017.
Allie was my second mantis and my all time favorite. I found her in the thyme bushes outside my grandmother's house. Allie was big, green and assertive. In fact, she had this disturbing habit of grabbing hold of my finger every time I tried to pick her up - and those claws were shockingly strong - and trying to eat it. She'd come down towards my skin chewing on the air in anticipation, and I'd slide a fingernail on my other hand in her way. She couldn't bite through that, so she'd just chew for a while and then back off.
To be honest, I think I favored her specifically for her aggression. I've never had another mantis quite so vengeful.
One time, I took Allie, Helen and Leafers, the 2017 green girls, out of their cages and placed them on the floor. A few minutes later, I tossed Helen and Leafers back into their cages and went off to do something else. I thought I'd gotten Allie, too, but as it turned out when I got back, I actually hadn't. I looked and looked for her in her cage, because it was partially green and she tended to blend in, and she just wasn't there.
I was searching frantically for her, and then Mom looked up and found her standing upside down on the ceiling. I shoulda known.
Allie died sometime before Halloween 2017.
Helen was my first ever mantis. I found her in the thyme plants in front of my grandmother's house. I was searching through the tall green stems, looking for caterpillars, when I spotted a mantis's light green body. I had been on the lookout for one of those, too, so I leaned over and grabbed her. As I did, I spotted a darker body - that of my all time favorite mantis, Allie - and I grabbed that one, too.
Helen was never really my favorite mantis. She was always sort of in the background, overshadowed by her "sisters." So I don't remember much about her. She wasn't super aggressive like Allie was. She was sort of middle of the road where my handling was concerned.
As a result of her constantly being overshadowed, the most I remember about her is her death. She became very lethargic, lost all ability to climb, continued that way, and eventually died. She was also very pregnant, so I always attributed it to pregnancy complications.
