Ive done a little bit of searching and it looks like my dessicata has laid an egg ..sack?! How? There is no male in there. Will it be just an infertile egg sack?
Female mantids, regardless if they have mated or not will still lay oothecae periodically. They will be infertile if no mating occurred. You still might have someone tell you it could hatch because of parthenogenesis, but the chance of this happening is like .00001%
i kept my sphodromantis (i'm guessing, sold as African Praying Mantis) ootheca on the branch in the cage with the female, and misted weekly to biweekly. about 50 babies hatched out.
here is a clue... MAKE SURE TO HAVE A FOOD SUPPLY in about 30 - 90 days. i was digging micromaggots out of my backyard to feed these guys while drosophila were on order. i don't even want to say how many i have left... but a woodshop teacher could count on one hand.
one of the dangers of keeping ootheca with mom, that i saw when i fed mom i had to watch crickets like a hawk, as the little devils would try to eat ootheca sometimes.
EDIT:
oh yeah, my babies could tackle freshly hatched baby crickets... but only the smallest... most of the crix i put with my nymphs seemed to go uneated.
and i did see two PM eat the micro maggots i put in
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