One Hundred Praying Mantises Crawled Out of a Woman's Christmas Tree

Insect, Mantis, Mantidae, Grasshopper, Invertebrate, Macro photography, Pest, Hand, Oecanthidae, Close-up,

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 10 January 2019

Truly, I thought the worst thing that could happen to Christmas's brand was that time Melania Trump wore blood-red gloves to decorate her tree. I was wrong. In Springfield, Virginia, a discarded Christmas tree birthed more than a hundred praying mantises, who quietly hatched from an egg underneath the tree's branches and crawled out of Molly Kreuze's tree in the early days in the new year. And where are they now, you ask? "Crawling on the walls, crawling on the ceilings," Molly explained helpfully to local station WJLA.

Here's what else I learned from this story: Praying mantises are born in droves from giant "egg cases," one of which unfortunately found itself at the bottom of Kreuze's tree. Also, the plural of praying mantis can be "praying mantes," or "praying mantises" —or "praying mantids" if you're feeling wild. Also, maybe I'll get a plastic Christmas tree next year.

Anyway, here's a photo of said "egg case" at the base of Kreuze's Christmas tree:

Now, Kreuze has a kinder heart than I do, and has not hysterically mass-murdered the mantises. (She's actually a veterinarian.) The mantises have made themselves quite at home, in fact. Here's a video.

Kreuze has been scooping the hordes of mantises into a giant box with the hope of giving them to someone who actually wants to live with praying mantises. "In my Googling, I discovered people really like praying mantises," she told WJLA optimistically. "I hope to find them a home."

Here's a photo of that, if you wondered:

So far she has captured more than 100 praying mantises 😱 @ABC7News at 6pm. pic.twitter.com/d9MFEayK10January 4, 2019

Oh no. Ohh no. Nonono.

Anyway, if you haven't tossed your Christmas tree yet, have fun doing that!! It's probably fine, I'm sure!!

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Jenny is the Digital Director at Marie Claire. A graduate of Leeds University, and a native of London, she moved to New York in 2012 to attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She was the first intern at Bustle when it launched in 2013, and spent five years building out its news and politics department. In 2018 she joined Marie Claire, where she held the roles of Deputy Digital Editor and Director of Content Strategy before becoming Digital Director. Working closely with Marie Claire's exceptional editorial, audience, commercial, and e-commerce teams, Jenny oversees the brand's digital arm, with an emphasis on driving readership. When she isn't editing or knee-deep in Google Analytics, you can find Jenny writing about television, celebrities, her lifelong hate of umbrellas, or (most likely) her dog, Captain. In her spare time, she also writes fiction: her first novel, the thriller EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD, was published with Minotaur Books (UK) and Little, Brown (US) in February 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller. She has also written extensively about developmental coordination disorder, or dyspraxia , which she was diagnosed with when she was nine. She is currently working on her second novel.