Many people keep praying mantis as a pet. Interacting and playing with them is fun as it helps develop a strong bond and companionship.
Can You Play With a Praying Mantis? You can play with a praying mantis to make these wild insects your pet, ensure comfort to them, interact with these amazing creatures, make them recognize you, and explore their behavior. It is essential to ensure your safety while playing with them as they can bite or pinch your skin badly.
They are not considered friendly creatures, but these insects are gentle towards humans if they feel safe around them. You can see them hanging upside down on trees.
Accordingly, you should know the situations that can threaten or make your pets aggressive that can help avoid their aggression.
Why would you play with a praying mantis?
Many people like to keep praying mantis as pets because they are considered spiritual, and having them in your home feels good. You can play and interact with these insects.
Make wild praying mantis a pet
Praying mantis are not social insects and prefer to live alone due to their cannibalistic nature, posing a threat of attack to insects of the same and different species or genera.
It is not considered a good friend of other insects because it fulfills dietary requirements by eating small invertebrates.
Accordingly, it can be challenging for you to make them your friends, but it is possible with frequent interaction and after spending time playing with them.
You can easily make a wild mantis a friendly pet by spending time with them, as they enjoy interacting after remaining inside cages for long hours.
Ensure comfort
Proper maintenance of praying mantis cages makes them feel comfortable when they find food and shelter without making serious efforts to prey on the insects.
In addition, playing with them also ensures comfort as it gives rise to a feeling of happiness and contentment in these insects.
They are solitary insects due to their predatory nature and avoid the risk of attacks from fellows and other creatures, but it does not mean they do not want to interact.
They can interact with creatures like humans when they do not feel threatened. Accordingly, they like to play and interact with humans as they jump between two hands.
Furthermore, you can also see them hopping on a hand and shoulder, showing their happiness and comfort with the person playing with them.
Interact with them
A sense of curiosity and nature of exploring nature can force you to interact with insects that look different from other insects due to varying body shapes.
They are fun to play with because they keep rotating their triangular heads for an angular vision of the surrounding areas.
Moreover, seeing them praying when they bring their front legs closer and bend forward to attack their prey looks amazing.
I have seen one praying mantis in my garden and found myself lucky enough to see them in a praying position because it was about to attack a fly sitting on the plant.
Make them familiar to yourself
Some people love to play with their pets and make efforts to make these insects familiar to their faces because they can recognize humans.
Spending a lot of time with these tiny creatures by playing regularly can make you familiar with them as they do not take much time to remember the faces.
It can be helpful to avoid the attack risk when they begin to recognize you because they only attack people with new faces. They feel the threat of finding new people around them and bite.
Explore their behavior
Praying mantis are pretty interesting creatures, and it is good to explore their behavior, which is only possible when you interact or play with them.
They behave differently from other insects and are generally aggressive by nature. It can be risky to play with them due to their attacking nature, but they can bond with humans.
By interacting with them, you can only explore their eating habits, attacking behavior, mating time, and ways to take care of eggs.
So, it can be good to interact and allow your pet to enjoy with you to understand their nature and needs to deal with them appropriately.
How do you play with a praying mantis?
Knowing ways to handle praying mantis is essential as these smaller creatures have soft muscular bodies lacking bones that can get damaged when you pick them with a strong grip.
They can be your friends if you make them feel comfortable while playing with them; otherwise, they can become aggressive towards you.
Accordingly, you can slide your hand forward slightly, as quick movements can threaten these tiny insects. Bring your hand closer to them and give them time to hop on hand alone.
After that, allow them to move freely between their hands and avoid picking by pinching their bodies. Keep your palm open and let them jump or hop willingly.
You can also feed them with live insects like crickets while playing with them, as they are usually happy when their bellies are full.
Moreover, they try to jump on the shoulders from hand and even make efforts to reach the ears or head.
It is better to keep them away from ears and head and offer a hand when sitting on shoulders to draw their attention towards hands.
Furthermore, developing a bond with your pet mantis can take a long time by regularly playing and spending time with them as they feel comfortable when they recognize you.
Is it safe to play with a praying mantis?
Playing with a praying mantis is considered safe, but these carnivorous creatures can sometimes become aggressive and attack ferociously.
Moreover, it is better to ensure safe handling to avoid the risk of bites and aggression as they respond to threats by biting and grabbing the bodies with spiked forelegs.
The bigger insects can bite you harder than the smaller ones, as their bigger mandibles can pinch the skin by dipping teeth deep into skin tissues.
Accordingly, the Chinese praying mantis requires more care than a smaller European mantis as their larger jaws can leave a bigger bite on the fingers or hand.
You have to follow safety measures before directly contacting these insects. These safety measures include using safety gloves to protect your fingers from biting.
There is nothing serious about these insects as they do not have venomous bites, but their powerful jaws can pierce the skin and cause mild pain.
In addition, it is better to keep them away from children because they are not aware of the correct handling method. They can get bites due to the firm grip on the mantis body.
Furthermore, you can interact with them regularly, but it is not considered ideal for annoying new pets by getting closer to their nests many times a day.
You can visit them once or twice a day at maximum to offer food and moisten their cages, but excessive interruption can cause discomfort for them.
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