Welcome to the Mantis Study Group's homepage. This site was started on 29th April 2008. At the moment there is nothing on it. This is as tidy as it will ever be!!

A brief history of the Mantis Study Group 

The Mantis Study Group (MSG) was founded by Phil Bragg on 18th May 1996 when a meeting was held in conjunction with the Blattodea Culture Group at Dudley Zoo.  The group rapidly expanded and there were more than 50 members when the first Mantis Study Group Newsletter was produced in August 1996, and over 100 member by the end of the year.

For the first four years there was plenty of material being written for the quarterly newsletters.  However, by 2000 contributions were diminishing and in mid 2001 there was nothing to put in the August issue; the scarcity of articles continued and after the combined May & August 2002 issue the next did not appear until August 2003.  By this stage it was clear the MSG newsletter could not continue and no further subscriptions were collected.  There were no more until Newsletter 27 in October 2007; this was produced as the final newsletter to tidy up a few loose ends and to publish an index to the Newsletters. 

For several years, people who had been involved in the MSG would stand around at entomological meetings and mutter about trying to relaunch the MSG, but based on the internet rather than a printed newsletter.   After waiting a couple of years, in the hope that someone else would do it, Phil Bragg took up the offer of this website which is hosted by the Natural History Museum, London.