I used to hatch oothica for my local environment. Baby mantids are useless and idk how they stay alive other than cannibalism. They dont have wings until the 5th instar (molt) and then only females get them I think. Until then they are just stationary and starve or something gets close enough. What a dumb survival strategy.

But! They are so fucking chill. They don’t mind bing handled, even fully wild ones. They will just move onto your hand and stay there. You can move them around, feed them from tweezers, etc. its honestly worth the slight effort it takes to hatch them to assure you have some around to interact with :)

You are a big moving tree to them, long as you aren’t trying to harm them. They don’t care about you. But if you feel them bugs often enough they might see you as a big friendly giving tree