Picture taken at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. I was out looking for monarchs in the field by the entrance drive, where there is a TON of common milkweed and some sizable patches of swamp milkweed.
The good news is that I saw multiple monarchs swooping around, visiting flowers, laying eggs, even mating. The bad news is that I saw this Chinese Mantis (Tenodera sinensis) lurking on some swamp milkweed flowers, and when I looked around in the tall grass I saw several torn-off monarch wings.
I saw the same thing https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/92906361 out back of an AirBnB I stayed at in Lancaster PA a few years back – a Chinese mantis staking out a butterfly bush, and discarded butterfly wings all around.
Mantises like to eat pollinators, no question. When I've seen them they are usually staking out a flower and looking to grab insects visiting that flower. However, in the city I've always seen the native Carolina Mantis. I've got more than 30 Carolina Mantis observations on iNaturalist. I've never seen one eating a butterfly or with telltale butterfly wings on the ground around it. I don't think this is because they are inherently more benign … I just think they're too small to grab large butterflies.
by urbantravelsPHL
7 Comments
You should have killed him. They are invasive, lay more eggs than others to reproduce, and Carolina are more benign while Chinese are more aggressive and will even kill and eat the Carolina mantis as well as our pollinators.
Snip
I just found these in my yard in Cleveland. Should I kill them? How?
[Here’s](https://www.pa.gov/agencies/pda/about-pda/boards-commissions/governors-invasive-species-council/report-an-invasive-species) a page I found on reporting invasive species in PA.
https://preview.redd.it/nrbbwhat37jf1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7773a0cf334a81cc1c7a21d6561df9ff34dd8823
Edit: I snapped this at a nursery I used to work at like 6 years ago.
If I catch one in my pollinator garden, I just move them to the tree of heaven patch down the block.
They have also been known to kill hummingbirds. I destroyed one that was stalking my cardinal flower last year.