MantisGirl13

Ugh. I'm having really bad luck right now. Right before my male unicorn molts to adult, he dies suddenly. I have an adult female waiting for him too! 

Then, right before I have an adult male ghost, all of my females die. My budwing ooth seems to be infertile, and my young nymphs are dropping quickly. I have no clue what's going on here, but it's not good at all. 

- MantisGirl13

I was planning to mate my green female ghost this afternoon, but I got back from grocery shopping and she had laid me a nice big infertile ooth.

So I decided to see if my male would be interested in my big dark female. Sure enough, after three hours of fooling around on her back, Pumpkin the male decided to make the connection!!!!!

This is the first ghost mating of the season for me, but not the last! I have three other females waiting for their turn.

- MantisGirl13

I go away for a few days and leave most of the mantids behind. I had only one casualty, but it was the most devastating one. My female orchid. I now have no orchids and I guess I'll have to start from scratch again with this species as older nymphs are too expensive for me. It's a shame.

- MantisGirl13

I just spent the last hour feeding fruit flies to almost fifty, soon to be more, nymphs of several different species. On top of that, I'm sick. Fun day! (Not)

I'm pooped.

- MantisGirl13

Ugh. My last S. pretiosa nymph died, and to make things worse, my only male orchid died from what looks to be an infection. My female is not quite mature yet, and neither was the male, but I was hoping to mate in a few weeks! Bad day.

- MantisGirl13

I'm really bummed. One of my only two S. pretiosa nymphs mismolted to L2, and I only have one left.

- MantisGirl13

Watching the female ghost that you bred, hatched, and raised yourself molting to adult is so nerve wracking!

- MantisGirl13

I just got back from a 5-day camping trip in Shenandoah. The area is beautiful! Pics tomorrow. 

I got home to 13 new spiny nymphs and two new Sybilla pretiosa nymphs. I'm bummed that the Sybilla ooth didn't hatch more.

The female orchid and two female ghost will be molting to adult any day now. I'm getting my crested gecko soon too!

- MantisGirl13

Male orchid mismolted to adult. Raptor arms and mandibles covered in exoskeleton, wings messed up. Legs are fine, so he may be salvageable, but most likely not able to mate.

- MantisGirl13

Wow! I just realized I've been on this forum for a year and four days now! It seems more like five years!

- MantisGirl13

I'm bored... Sitting and watching a mounted but not mating pair of spinys is really boring. Especially when the male isn't even attempting a connection!

-MantisGirl13

Bummer. I had a male majuscula in the mail ready for my female, and right before she gets here she gets weak and is dying. She won't move her mandible so I can't feed her anything. 

The male is here now, but the female is on her way out.

There goes my only chance to breed!

- MantisGirl13

Sick AGAIN!! I think I've been sick more times this winter than any other winter. Just a cold this time, but I've had a headache all day and am really tired. 

I fed most of the mantids today, and I think my G. African female will molt soon because she would not accept food no matter how hard I tried!

- MantisGirl13

Well, I thought my orchid gal was subadult because she was L7 and Graceface said that female orchids are adult at L8, but it turns out she molted again (to sub this time) and she is HUGE! Pictures to come.I

- MantisGirl13

What a day! It's barely started! My sister was sick yesterday, and my mom got sick too. I woke up to my brother throwing up, my mom too sick to get out of bed for more than 5 mins, and my dad sick and sleeping. This means that only me and my youngest sister are healthy right now. I have to get her on the bus and somehow avoid getting sick for the next few days. Ugh!

- MantisGirl13

Wow! I haven't been on the Forum a year yet, and I just reached the Ghost Mantis rank!! 3000 posts! I think I'm on here too much...

- MantisGirl13

Can't wait till tomorrow! I am going to the Philly Insectarium with a friend of mine. They have mantids!!

- MantisGirl13

My last day of being 13 years old! I hope I get mantids and a good camera for my birthday tomorrow!! 

- MantisGirl13

Busy day here today! Yesterday I spent a few hours cleaning cages and moving mantids and ooths to bigger cages for molting, hatching, etc. I'm so glad I did all that yesterday, because I had one of the ooths (G. amoena) hatch out today (2 nymphs so far). 

One of the ghosts molted to subadult! She is so pretty! (Pictures coming)

I also fed my green anoles and finally got the picky eater to eat a mealworm.