My girlfriend noticed this mantis crawling up the wall outside my house the other day, so I caught it. Any Ideas what species it is? I live in the Central Valley of California if that will help in ID'ing it. I want to say that its a Mediterranean Mantis based on some photos I've seen. Anyway, here are the pics:

no idea on sp

these things are the greatest to watch hunt if you have never had a long range visual predator beforei was jazzed for days when i saw one of my local buddies wing boost leap across his cage to pounce on a roach.  oh man. i'm smiling right now thinking about it heh

Cool. It's eaten a few mealworms so far. How big of an insect can they take down anyway? (compared to their size)

It looks similar to the one I found in my front yard about two months ago (Northern California):

I kept it inside for a week - feeding it crickets - and it laid an ootheca, so I put it and the egg case back outside.

Hey guys!

I agree with RosenKrieger that his is a medaterranean.  The females of that species have the shorter wings.

Chalcosoma's looks like the Chinese mantid.  These guys can get HUGE in captivity.

Both species are commonly sold in gardening stores as ootheca in the springtime.  Its a great way to keep your veggies pest, and pesticide free!

Awesome, Thanks Bones.

I got to watch her chow down on a mealworm today, and while I was watching that, I noticed she laid an ootheca. :) I'll probably keep her and put the ooth outside.

it looks like a stagmomantis californica to me, i have raised a few and they all look super similar to that one. 

RosenKrieger's mantis is an adult female Iris oratoria. Roberts mantis is an adult female Mantis religiosa. And yours my dear is either a Stagmomantis californica, or a Stagmomantis limbata? Female nymph.

We had a mantis make it's home in our light post back in October/November, we decided to name her Montyna, she must have really loved that lamp post because she chose that spot to lay 5 egg sacks, now we have babies hatching like crazy every day and they're so stinking cute (: unfortunately their mama ran off with some dragon flys haha.

 

But to answer your question how big of a bug can they eat, we saw a very bloated(ready to lay eggs) Montyna take down a cicada bug, I guess she needed the energy to push those eggs out.

Mantids will eat what ever they can over power! Large enough mantids have been known to capture and consume hummingbirds, small lizards, snakes, and mice.