Fascinating infestation

It has been a very bizarre week and a half in many ways...not the least of which bizarre happenings was waking up this morning to an insect infestation in my kitchen. Approximately 100 small insects swarmed all over my sink, counter, and wall. Upon closer inspection, they appeared to be miniature praying mantis. At first we were stymied, and then I remembered...on our Christmas tree this year, there was a small thing. Unsure what it was, I decided to keep it so that we could cut it in half in science class sometime and try to figure out what had made it. In the meantime, I had set it on the windowsill between our kitchen and living room. And -- you guessed it -- it was the egg sac of a praying mantis, and it was hatching!!! My response was "Oh, cool!!!", after which Bruce informed me that I was in the mere 1% of the population who would respond that way, and then he happily left for work and left me to happily deal with the insects! I ended up collecting as many as I could in a container and we spent over an hour studying them, doing research on the Internet to learn all we could about our new guests, and figuring out if raising them was a viable option (we're giving it a try). I learned a ton of fascinating things about them. (I know everybody's not as interested as I am, so I won't go into it all, but just in case, there are a couple of informative sites here and here.) I did learn that the egg sac of a praying mantis is called an ootheca (pronounced oh-uh-THEH-kuh). The eggs are laid outside in the autumn, and then once temperatures reach 70 degrees, they will hatch in 2-8 weeks. (Let's see...we bought our tree on Dec. 5th, and so tomorrow would have been seven weeks since we brought the ootheca in to 70ish temperatures. Bingo.) I never would have guessed that at any point in my life I would both purchase and attempt to propogate fruit flies, but guess what mantis nymphs eat? Yup. Fruit flies. Fortunately, PetSmart sells flightless fruit flies. That way the ones that escape while I try to feed them to our young mantises merely crawl around until I catch them, instead of flying away to form a second insect infestation in my house! So far the (apparently not-so-very-bright) mantises haven't figured out that they're supposed to eat the flies. Whenever one of the flies crawls near, the mantises all scatter frantically to escape it. Hopefully instinct will kick in soon! Mantises also tend strongly toward cannibalism, so that should get interesting, too. I could keep rambling, but I'll try to restrain myself. This has just been so very fascinating for both me and the kids! David likes them; he recalled what we learned earlier this year about insects and is anxious for them to start eating so that he can see their chewing mouths in action; he's been using his magnifying glass to try to see their compound eyes and jointed legs. Abigail thinks they're "sweet" and calls them "pretty mantises"instead of "praying mantises". Even Molly was fascinated...