As the festive season approaches people are already decorating their homes. Most will have a Christmas tree decked with all kinds of baubles and tinsel.
However one post which regularly appears on Facebook at this time of the year is warning people to take extra care if they have a real Christmas tree. It urges people to check for strange lumps and remove them if they find them.
The post by Daniel Reed says: "If you happen to see a walnut sized/shaped egg mass on your Christmas tree, don’t fret, clip the branch and put it in your garden. These are 100-200 preying (sic) mantis eggs!
"We had two egg masses on our tree this year. Don’t bring them inside they will hatch and starve!"
So far the post has been shared 185,000 times, reports The Mirror. And commenters have pointed out they have also found the small clumps on their tree with some hatching inside.
However the chances of finding a preying mantis sac is quite small. According to horticulture expert Chris Enroth they appear in about 1 in 100,000 real trees. But if you are one of the unlucky ones to find them they need to be dealt with or risk finding hundreds of insects in your home.
But while there is also a slim chance that there might be other bugs in the branches, these are easy to deal with. According to the National Christmas Tree Association athough "extremely rare", a number of different insects and spiders have been found in Christmas trees after setup.
It advises cleaning and shaking trees before setting them up are valuable preventive actions. It adds: "If troublesome after setup, the first thing to do is to vacuum. If necessary, household insect sprays specifically labeled for use indoors on ornamental plants and evergreens may also be used, following label directions. It is important to turn off and unplug all tree lighting before any sprays are applied to your Christmas tree."
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