Yellowknife (Sep 22/03) - When Dave Brothers was off-loading a transport truck from California he came across a remarkable sight: sitting on top of a wooden beam, surrounded by dozens of steel girders was a four-inch-long praying mantis.

"We were surprised," said Brothers of his discovery. "It was such an odd looking insect and I had never seen anything like it."

Mantids, an insect order with more than 1,800 species, are found throughout the United States and southern Canada but rarely as far north as the NWT.

Brothers thinks the mantis may have jumped on somewhere in California and sat back for the 4,000 km ride to Yellowknife.

"It was sitting on a (piece of wood) which held the steel in place, so it was sort of underneath everything," he said.

"It may have had a long ride up here."

Originally from southern Europe, China and Africa, mantids were introduced to North America about 75 years ago to help gardeners control aphids and mosquitos.

They are voracious feeders. The females are known to occasionally devour their mates during copulation.

"They aren't supposed to bite humans, but I'd prefer not to take the chance," said Brothers.

After discovering the mantis, he put it into a plastic container, punched a few holes in the lid and brought it to N.J. MacPherson Elementary School.

"The kids were amazed," said Brothers.

"They all crowded around and wanted to get a look."

The mantis now resides in a converted fish tank in Brothers' living room. It spends most of the day hanging upside down from a plastic tree.

Brothers gives the new family pet one live grasshopper per day, and he says the feeding process can be gruesome. "The mantis just sucks all the fluids right out of the grasshopper," he said.

The exotic insect has also become quite the attraction in the Brothers' household. "My wife's sister came over and couldn't stop looking at it," said Brothers. "People are just amazed by it." Brothers isn't sure how much longer the mantis will survive though. In the wild, females die at the onset of winter or a few weeks after giving birth.

"Hopefully it survives for a while, because it is really an interesting animal," he said.