Live, on time, or you get a new one.

Pick the speed that matches your tolerance for risk. Priority Overnight is the only service the Live Arrival Guarantee applies to.

Live-mantis carts default to Priority Overnight. You can downgrade to 2-Day to save money, and we keep offering it in normal weather and even in extreme heat — but it is never covered by the Live Arrival Guarantee, at any temperature, and picking it in a heat wave is the single riskiest choice on this page. If a 2-Day mantis arrives dead there is no replacement and no refund. Carts containing only feeders or supplies (fruit fly cultures, misting bottles, enclosures) ship Ground Home Delivery by default, with an optional overnight upgrade at checkout.

If your mantis arrives dead, we send a replacement — or refund the animal's price if we can't restock soon. The guarantee is strict because live shipping is unforgiving. Every condition below must be true.

• Order shipped Priority Overnight — no slower service qualifies. 2-Day is never covered, at any temperature. Held-for-pickup orders are covered: it's the same overnight service, just routed to a staffed counter.
• If your order is held for pickup: collected within 24 hours of the carrier's ready-for-pickup notice. Two clocks run here and only the short one is ours — FedEx will physically hold the parcel about 7 days, but our guarantee ends at 24 hours.
• Package opened the same day it's delivered, on the first delivery attempt.
• A continuous, unedited unboxing video from sealed box to the mantis still in its cup.
• Claim reported within 24 hours of unboxing with that video (photos help).
• The video is the original, unedited file — straight off your phone or camera, not trimmed, cropped, screen-recorded, or re-exported. Editing strips the metadata we verify the claim with.

We pre-check the 3-day forecast for your destination ZIP before every shipment. If it crosses a threshold, your guaranteed options change: overnight orders are re-routed to Hold at Carrier Location, or in cold weather you can choose door delivery with a heat pack instead. If conditions are unsafe for any service, we hold the order and email you — it resumes the moment conditions clear, usually within a week.

When a doorstep delivery falls into a temperature concern, we re-route the order to Hold at Carrier Location so the animal is never left in an unattended mailbox or on a hot or cold porch. In cold weather, door delivery stays available with a free heat pack — included whenever your forecast calls for one, at no extra charge.

We ship live invertebrates to the 48 contiguous states only. We cannot ship live animals to:

International orders are not supported. We're working on Canada — join the Discord for updates.

In the valley? At checkout you'll automatically see local options no one else gets — no weather hold, no carrier, climate-controlled the whole way. Full details on the Las Vegas local page.

These options appear only for valley ZIP codes. Everyone else sees standard carrier service.

Not going to be home? Add Hold at Location at checkout and your order ships to the nearest staffed carrier location to wait for your ID.

• Same overnight speed, full LOA still applies.
• No porch piracy, no missed delivery, no box baking in the sun.
• The carrier's clock: FedEx will physically hold the parcel about 7 days before sending it back to us.
• Our clock: the Live Arrival Guarantee requires you to collect the package within 24 hours of the ready-for-pickup notice. Past 24 hours the guarantee is void — even though FedEx still has the box on the shelf.

Those two numbers aren't in conflict: the 7 days is how long FedEx will keep it, the 24 hours is how long our guarantee lasts. There's a live animal in that box, so plan to collect it the day it lands.

We strongly recommend this if home delivery is unattended during the day.

Carts that total $300 or more automatically qualify for free Priority Overnight at checkout — full LOA still applies.

The free-shipping rate appears alongside any 2-Day option, so you can still choose the faster, safer service at no extra cost. We never downgrade a free-shipping order to a slower speed without telling you.

Bring the package indoors immediately. Let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, then open in a draft-free room.

Don't feed for the first 24 hours — a settling mantis that refuses food is normal, not a problem. Full first-day steps are in the shipping & arrival care guide.