I found this praying mantis in my laundry room, waiting patiently to catch a few insects and scaring the kids in the house. So I put it in a jar and decided the best place for it, naturally, was in the garden. I put it in my sole tomato plant and got some nice photos of it before it scrambled up the green foliage and became invisible in the leaves.

Worldwide there are nearly 2,000 different species of praying mantis, from the temperate areas in North America, Europe and China, to tropical zones in Africa and South America.

I’ve read some accounts that the praying mantis is an undesirable. Why? Because it eats just about everything: leaf-hoppers, aphids and small flies, beetles, butterflies, spiders, crickets, and grasshoppers. The larger species will even eat small vertebrates, like tree frogs, lizards, mice and hummingbirds!
I don’t think this little guy will be dining on hummingbird anytime soon, and even if he does eat a few spiders or ladybugs here and there, I figure the benefit of species diversity will make the system more dynamic and stable in the long run.