Hi! I am a citizen scientist & invertebrate keeper and I am offering my services to anyone who has seen these invasive praying mantises in their yard or garden. Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) are fairly common in Polk County, but they are invasive and harmful to the native Carolina mantises (Stagmomantis carolina) that occupy the same environmental niche. They are much larger than the native mantises and they can & will take the smaller mantises as food, as well as feasting indiscriminately on butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects. They are large enough to eat small lizards and frogs, even hummingbirds if the opportunity arises. If you have seen these mantises, please reach out and I can come and collect them - on the basis that I can keep them for my own collection, either raised captively for the rest of their life if I have the space, or humanely euthanized to be dried and posed as a specimen.
I am also generally happy to capture & remove other invasive species by request, but mantises are my current interest. Collection requests will be approved on a case-by-case basis depending on my free time and knowledge of any given species. I do not charge for my services at all, I only ask that I am allowed to keep the insects I collect.
