Andrea Coward and her family thought cutting down their own Christmas tree from a farm in Ohio would be a fun and festive activity. They were hoping to make a memory they’d never forget, and they did — but not for the reasons they’d hoped for.
Two weeks after they brought their tree home, the family noticed movement inside the tree. Suddenly, hundreds of tiny baby praying mantises were hopping all over the place, leaping out of the tree and all over the family’s home.
“They were on the tree branches and then they just started running,” Coward said in a news interview posted to TikTok.
@andeekitty Beware of the real trees. 🤣 #realtree #christmastree #prayingmantis #prayingmantisoftiktok #christmastreefail #faketreenextyear ♬ It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year – Andy Williams
Apparently, the family’s tree had been home to a praying mantis egg sac that they hadn’t noticed, and the warm temperatures inside their house had caused it to finally hatch.
@jenniferkpower Going with an artificial tree next year #christmastree ♬ Oh No – Kreepa
Praying mantises enjoy laying their eggs in fir trees, and many Christmas tree farms try to watch out for them to avoid the situation the Coward family encountered.
@andeekitty My minute of fame. 😂🤣 #prayingmantis #christmastree #christmas #bugsintree #minuteoffame #newsinterview #christmastreefarm ♬ Elf – Main Theme – Geek Music
“We train our workers to look for them as we process the trees our customers cut from our fields,” Alan Binger, owner of Hidden Pines Christmas Tree Farm in Ohio, explained.
“We put each tree on a shaker after being cut, which will sometimes detach the sac from the tree, but sometimes we will manually pull the sac from the tree. We save any sacs we find and place them back in smaller trees in the field so that they can hatch in the spring and do their great work.”
It might be a good idea to check your tree yourself too, just in case, and if you do find a praying mantis egg sac, don’t panic.
“If someone notices a sac in their tree before it hatches, simply pull it out and place it in your outside landscaping so that they can hatch in the spring and do their wonderful work,” Binger said.
While finding praying mantis babies in your tree is pretty rare, it does happen. It’s not the Christmas surprise most families are expecting, but it certainly does liven up the holidays.