Preying Mantis nest made last year in my garden.
At last the young have emerged, only problem is that ants found it pretty quickly and hve clearly eaten some.
However some have managed to escape and I am finding the tiny little exact replicas of the adult, but less than 3mm long !!!!
Here is pic of the nest and the `young` chain from which they have emerged..fascinating.
Just no idea how something this tiny can manage to grow, what do they eat??

A nice photo of the ootheca(egg capsule). I will have to look in my garden for those.

They're predators/ carnivores, and the smallest ones start out with aphids and fruit flies, progressing to larger prey as they get bigger. Some tropical species can take prey as large as small reptiles and hummingbirds.

These really are fascinating little creatures. Last year I watched while what I guess was one of the nest builders (what a structure that is), parents, caught a fly as it passed by, in mid air. I was actually videoing it when it happened. Now that is a quick reaction considering I cant get anywhere near a fly in mid air. I just hope that some or even one survives to adulthood, but it will take a lot of hunting around in the garden to find it, that having been said, they are smart enough to know that flying insects (prey) hang around flowering plants.

Wow! We macro-fauna are all just wallowing in treacle compared to the time scales on which insects live their lives. A few of the survivors will be out there, you can be fairly confident of that, as the one you saw was only the latest of several million generations of ancestors! 😲

We have a native population of mantises, they're hard to find if you set out to look for them, but fascinating to watch when you do. I've usually found one while pruning bushes on the sunny side of our house. The largest I've seen here in NC is probably around 5"-6" long (12cm-15cm,).

Amazing.
I live in the "natural park" or reserve, yet it's rare to see any wildlife other than birds.

We used to get lots of praying mantis nests around our house. They were to be found under windowsills most often, so looked different from your photo, wellinever. Paler and almond shaped.
I loved seeing the tiny babies emerging. I would get rid of any spiders and webs nearby.
Something I miss from New Zealand.