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hatching praying mantis pods

  • Thread starter uphwiz
  • Start date

uphwiz

jimmy
any advise on hatching my pods, I just got them ,
what to do??
anyone?:blush:
 
warm them up. and wait....

i might add i had two of them, both ooths opened at the same time. i originally intended to use them for a science project in march. they didnt open until the summer--so i think temperature has a lot to do with their development.
 
Hey Jimmy, What species did you get? My first was an African species Sphodromantis lineola.

What I do is put them into a big tupperware foodie (like a 1 gallon size or bigger) with a hole cut on the top with aluminum mosquito screen glued over the hole. I hang the eggcase (ootheca) with the seam facing down so gravity will allow them to slide easily out of their cells inside the egg. Then I place the foodie(s) ontop of my TV since it's warm but not too hot. Mist through the ventilation hole every day or two, not much just a spritz, don't want the egg to get soggy or anything. I don't always remember to mist everyday, just do it the next time you think of it.

I don't use any substrate in the hatching foodie cos when they do finally hatch (after a month or so of warm "weather") you have to dump them out into something bigger to grow on if you don't plan on setting them free in the garden immediately. Only release the three species approved by the USDA to be released in the US: Carolina mantis, European mantis and Chinese mantis otherwise you'll have to find homes for them or freeze (euthanize) the extras. Or just keep them together a long time and eventually you will only have a few! LOL

A clear plastic bin with some 2" ventilation holes covered with the screen and lots of branchy twigs in it so they can hang upside down and molt to their next instars is an easy and fast home for a colony of mantid babies. Don't keep them as a big community after their 3rd or 4th molt or they'll start eating each other even if there is abundant food. A couple can be kept in a well planted aquarium for quite some time but don't be shocked when there is only one fat and happy one.

Make sure you've got a few fruit fly cultures handy cos they'll need to eat a few days after they hatch. If you feed them right away they will run from the fruit flies! LOL But make sure when they hatch that you carefully mist the walls of container so they can drink, they need water. You'll see them walking head down lapping up the water. They'll eat fruit flies for a few weeks, keeping the babies warm (below 90*F) and well fed will make them grow faster, once they get to the point they can eat tiny crickets you can let them be cooler (room/outdoor temp) and grow slower, unless you want them big fast then warm temps and lots of food will grow them faster but they will also not quite live as long since their entire life processes are sped up by "power feeding". But I always power feed them the first stages because they are quite fragile at a young age so this blasts them through those days quickly.

After they get too big to keep as a big group you can set them free in the garden and just keep a couple, females will make an egg sack full of clones whether there are males or not so you can get eggs in the fall from your pet mantis (if it's a female).
 
wow thank you swords , i was just trying the for the first time , now im quite excited:0o: , have you ever had any of the cool looking species:-D
do you have any pictures of African species Sphodromantis lineola.
sounds ominous .LOL
mine are just reg Chinese pods what ever that means , Im quite new to this.
 
Here's Tenodera sinensis the Chinese mantis, not my pic:
http://www.cirrusimage.com/mantidae_praying_mantis.htm
Chinese_mantis_09.jpg


The S. lineola looks pretty much like any other green mantid, a stockier build than the Chinese one which I always think looks like a stick insect.
http://www.magmaconcept.com/insects/0sphodro.htm

it wasn't the more beautiful and exotic species but very handleable after a while and that's what's cool, the interaction. The common species are generally easily handleable until they get their wings as adults, but hand training takes time for them to get over their skittishness otherwise they're just a fine "behind glass" pet for a terrarium.

Here's a good forum about mantids I've just located a while ago: http://mantidforum.net
There's a few TFers over there, join in the fun! Lots of trading and such going on for the rare and exotic mantid species.
 
My 4th grade teacher actually reared hatchlings in a test tube vial for a few weeks before giving them out to us!

They make great pets for the house, mine would always pick a spot above the window sill. I wouldn't mind having one again. Thanks for a reminder of my childhood!

I used to keep stick insects too, but I'm not sure if this is the right forums considering what we grow haha.
 
  • #10
wow thank you swords , i was just trying the for the first time , now im quite excited:0o: , have you ever had any of the cool looking species:-D
do you have any pictures of African species Sphodromantis lineola.
sounds ominous .LOL
mine are just reg Chinese pods what ever that means , Im quite new to this.

Good luck with yours. I just took my batch of oothecae for the species I keep out of cold storage a couple of weeks ago so they can start incubation. I love keeping and breeding matids. It's extremely fun and interesting.

As for cool looking species... Well, there are new species being discovered all the time in the tropics that look amazing. However, I think my favorite one will always be Idolomantis diabolica.

It's visually stunning...
Photo Link 1
Photo Link 2
 
  • #11
my mantids are hatching and im still waithing on my fruit fly cultures should get here in a day or two , will this be ok , or should i get some thing locally, would they eat aphids i have plenty of these in the gardens. or shoould i wait a day or two for the flys.
are they going to eat each other? guess there would still be one very big monster left. LOL
 
  • #12
Check your PM for my long winded answer.

For now just make sure you mist them gently and they get some water to drink. I don't think you want to bring aphids in. They will "tide themselves over" until the flies come... but there should be plenty left in a few days time - they hatch out like mad don't they? How many do you estimate? Have you opened their container yet? They scramble everywhere - flooding out like an exodus! Have fun with that! :D
 
  • #13
Grats on getting them hatched. They will readily eat each other if food is in short supply. While growing they will eat as fast as you can give them food. Hopefully your ff culture is very active. Even small mantids will go through ff like crazy. Don't be surprised if you get hooked into a new hobby. They grow quickly, and their head movements give them such a unique quality, it's almost like they are more then little insects. After you've given the chinese mantids a try, check out the more unusual species. They can be fascinating.

I used to be really into the mantis hobby. At one time or another, I had just about all the great exotic ones, except diobolica and hymenopus coronatus . Those things were impossible to get back then. For a long time I really liked Gongylus. Such an unusual shape and I loved the way they danced around, and how they could be kept communally. But jeeze they were timid and refused anything but flies or small bees, hard to come by at certain times of the year. Mine would even refuse tiny crickets. Plus they needed such high temps. Ghost mantids were easier and readily took small crickets. Pseudocreobotra ocellata is an awesome mantis also. So exotic and beautiful, and you've gotta love the threat display!

In the end, I found the bigger, aggressive breeds to be my favorite. I had hierodula and loved how big they got. Plus they were fairly aggressive and tough. Chinese mantids never did anything for me, but it might be because they are so common outside. Plus I found them timid for their size. I really liked affnis. Great colors, and quite aggressive! Plus they gorge themselves to a point more than any other species I kept. But my favorite were the lineola's. Not huge in length, but stocky and strong. Very aggressive and brave, they are tough little nuggets. They would pursue their prey, actively chase it down, and would routinely take prey 2x their size! I fed my adults anole lizards every now and then. Plus they lived long for mantids. Of course that varies depending on how much they are fed and temps they are kept at.

Hey, found a few old pics I still had hidden away online:
affinis
AffinisEdit.jpg


lineola acting tough:
DSCF0129.jpg

Mugshot:
AlienEyes.jpg


hierodula (left) and lineola (right) side by side:
DSCF0145.jpg


juvenile paradoxa:
Ghost_Mantis_1.jpg
 
  • #15
It's so cute how they all climb to the top and then fall down!
 
  • #16
Nightsky,
S. lineola was my first species! Got the ooth from Orin Mcmonigle of Elytra and Antenna books a long time ago when his Keeping Aliens mantis booklet was first released.

I'm getting four L6 stage paradoxas on Friday if the stars are right. Can't wait, it's a species I've wanted since forever.

Nowdays you can order houseflies and bluebottle pupae (or maggots whee!) from here: http://www.mantisplace.com/feederinsects.html

I've got 100 BB pupae coming you just put a pupae or two into the mantis enclosure and in 24-48 hours they hatch and the mantis gets dinner. I could start a BB culture but I hate maggots! I can toss a "fly bean" (pupae) into a terrarium once a day to avoid the stinky maggot farming.

Jimmy,
I'd put these guys in a 10 gallon clear rubbermaid container or something similar to give them more leg room, put lots of twigs or silk plants with bendable wire stems all twisted inside the bin so they have individual places to climb on and hang upside down from to molt, However big the mantis is he will need twice that height to molt. When they hatch together they tend to all molt at the same time so they all need "perches" from which to do it. They may or may not eat their molts, it's ok if they do cos it has some food value.
 
  • #17
I found these babies on my deck, they were hangin around my Amorphophallus flower.

4553101109_cb4040fd87.jpg


4553100951_e5ebc46ddc.jpg
 
  • #18
Those are so cute, larry! Where in So.Cal. are you? I wonder if I could ever find mantids roaming around my plants...
 
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