Just before I entered the first house I rented in New Zealand I saw a very tiny animal that was clearly not an ant. It was a very young praying mantis. Few weeks later I found many big ones in the garden.
The animals are easy to catch. Moreover, they often just walk on your hand when you hold it in front of the animal.
One day I released a Monarch butterfly (I kept the caterpillars and chrysalises in the house to protect them from hungry birds) and when it landed on a flower, a praying mantis cut it into little pieces. Mantids are very efficient hunters.