# Hymenopus coronatus color change



## Pelle (Sep 4, 2008)

Hi,

At the moment I have 2 adult _Hymenopus_ couples, and one of the females was very pink and the other had no pink at all.

A week ago I switched the enclosures so I could focus on mating of the white one.

The pink one was 6 weeks adult and the white one was 4 weeks adult.

But the one that was pink turned white and the white one has a lot of pink now.

Here is shown how I switched the enclosures







And here are some pictures how they were






Pink one






White one






And these are the pictures I took today

Same setup






The one that used to be pink






The one that used to be white











So I was wondering if it's just a coincidence or ? Because I only swtiched the enclosures.

Temperature/humidity and light don't change very much in my opinion.

And yes, I'm 100% sure I'm not mixing the two up  

Anyone got an idea ?


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## mrblue (Sep 4, 2008)

im stumped, thats amazing! i always thought mantids could only change colour from moult to moult. like i said, i have no idea :huh:


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## Giosan (Sep 4, 2008)

That really is odd! :mellow:


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## Rick (Sep 4, 2008)

Love the pink. Mine were always white.


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## OGIGA (Sep 4, 2008)

Hmm, that's very interesting. Can you give us more details about the enclosures they were in? You know, where the light was, where the air is, where everything is inside it and around it...


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## collinchang635 (Sep 5, 2008)

Really weird..... Is there even a possibility of this?


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 5, 2008)

Well, they are able to change to match their enviroment! If you think about it, they exist amoung the Orchids and blend right in with the flowers. I put mine in containers with all green, pinks, white and red flowers and they are very either pink, or white, every now and then I get yellow.


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## Pelle (Sep 5, 2008)

OGIGA said:


> Hmm, that's very interesting. Can you give us more details about the enclosures they were in? You know, where the light was, where the air is, where everything is inside it and around it...


Well, they are standing in this






On the right is a window, but I never have natural light from it inside my room , because with al the lamps it is bright enough  

The enclosures are the square boxes, with ventilation from above as you can see.

And ventilation from the side, although the enclosure with the one that used to be white has no ventilation from the side.

They are standing on the second shelve counting from the bottem.

Each enclosure has one brown twig inside, because they are on the lid mostly..

Around it are more enclosures and a white wall.

I could switch them again and see what happens ?  

@ hibiscusmile

So it's just normal ? I haven't read anything about it ever before with this species though.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 5, 2008)

hibiscusmile said:


> Well, they are able to change to match their enviroment! If you think about it, they exist amoung the Orchids and blend right in with the flowers. I put mine in containers with all green, pinks, white and red flowers and they are very either pink, or white, every now and then I get yellow.


Ooooo.... So they are like chameleons? BTW, Pelle, did you change the plants in the containers?


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## Pelle (Sep 5, 2008)

There are no plants inside the containers


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## Rob Byatt (Sep 5, 2008)

Pelle said:


> And ventilation from the side, although the enclosure with the one that used to be white has no ventilation from the side.They are standing on the second shelve counting from the bottem.


This is what I was expecting you to say  They tend to go pink when exposed to higher humidity.


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## idolomantis (Sep 5, 2008)

Rob Byatt said:


> This is what I was expecting you to say  They tend to go pink when exposed to higher humidity.


really? need to try that sometime... when there adult.


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## Pelle (Sep 5, 2008)

Rob Byatt said:


> This is what I was expecting you to say  They tend to go pink when exposed to higher humidity.


Well, I quess you are right about that.

It's just that I didn't switch the mantids in the enclosures, but the whole enclosure+mantids.

So as far as I now the humidity didn't really change inside the enclosure, because they didn't get more or less ventilation.


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## darkspeed (Sep 5, 2008)

my experience is that it is way more complex than just humidity... Both my females came from the same clutch and were kep in identical conditions. One was snow white till she molted to adult and then she got some brown spots on her leg lobes,,, wheras the other one amazingly started turning pink on her arms and legs while subadult, and then the rest of her body turned greenish yellow. It was so wierd, but even wierder was that after all that color change, when she molted to adult she was white again. There are too many unknown variables involved to simply tag this phenomenon as based on humidity alone.

In the attached fotos you can see how she began to turn pink and then the strange creamy green color that she ended up before molting. The shot of the adult is her sister taken on the same day as a comparison.


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## OGIGA (Sep 5, 2008)

Pelle said:


> They are standing on the second shelve counting from the bottem.


Hmm, I can't seem to figure out which one. Is the the second shelf that we can see clearly or the second shelf that there is?


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## Pelle (Sep 6, 2008)

@ Darkspeed

Nice colors When they where subadult they were also kept in the same condition, but they weren't both white..



OGIGA said:


> Hmm, I can't seem to figure out which one. Is the the second shelf that we can see clearly or the second shelf that there is?


This one


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## OGIGA (Sep 6, 2008)

Oh wow, I can't believe you spent the time to make it red just so that I/we can see. It's the two cubes on the right, right? Looks pretty much the same to me. I wonder why their color changed.


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## AikoAiko (Sep 6, 2008)

My subadult female H. coronatus was pure white up until about a month ago. Then she turned bright pink all over. After she shed her skin, she was mostly white again, with only faint touches of pink on her leg lobes. Now she is starting to turn more pink again. Out of the six orchid mantises I have kept, she is the only one that has turned pink. The others, which are all male, are all white and they are kept in the exact same conditions.

Aiko


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## Pelle (Sep 7, 2008)

OGIGA said:


> Oh wow, I can't believe you spent the time to make it red just so that I/we can see. It's the two cubes on the right, right? Looks pretty much the same to me. I wonder why their color changed.


Didn't took very much time, and I like photoshop

Yes, but the set-up is different then in that picture, it's like the first picture of this topic.


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## Quake (Sep 12, 2008)

My giant asian is still a nymph, and hasn't molted her first time, but since I have had her, she has been slowly changing from borwn to green. First her arms turned green, then her back started to change in little stripes, and now she is mostly green. I think it is because I put a green plant in her cage a few days after I got her.


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## Christian (Sep 12, 2008)

As I wrote many, many, many times  , any color change acts on population level. A sample size of 2 doesn't have any value. As such, it is pure coincidence.

On the other hand, humidity alone may be misleading. The window may be important in this regard because of the natural light spectrum it offers. By switching the enclosures you also switched the amount of natural light, even if just faint and indirect, that reaches the two boxes. The difference may (bust doesn't necessarily have to) account for the difference. To draw any conclusions whatsoever, you need a larger sample size and en environment that can be better controlled for other factors.


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## Mantis_Whisper (Sep 12, 2008)

I don't have any pink ones, but when my two adult females first molted into adults they were pure white. Now they both have a yellow tint.

It may be ligthing, or humdity, but we won't know until someone does a case study, and there aren't enough orchids to pull it off, unless someone gets a surplus.


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