# MANTIS INFO



## Ghozt (Mar 11, 2010)

Well, let me start with saying that I have always been fascinated with Mantids ! I have caught many in my life. Then, I decided to buy a few. I went to Rebecca at mantisplace.com. Got my 1st batch. I got 3 Asian mantis. 1 Died right away, 1 mis-molted and lost a leg and died and 1 to this day i have. Adult male Asian mantis named Cell. So at this part of my message let me say that i have been reading on mantids and breeds and the climate the are used to living in heat and humidity. With knowing this two still died. Then I ordered another batch of mantis... I got 2 adult budwings, african mantis and another asain mantis.

All for odd resons died. Even following the guidlines to there habitat weather. But this time when my mantids died it was from a verity of sicknesses. Budwing had some blue goo driping out the back end, Other budwing tried to lay an ooth and 3 days later died, all other mantids just where found dead. So now at this point i went back and thoght things thru... FOOD, WATER, HEAT, HUMIDITY...

As for food I went far back as changing the food i was feeding my feeders and how long the feeder was alive before feeding to my mantis. So as thinking this, I started at my fruit fly culture, what where they eating and if mold grew inside the culture... looked fine. Then the crickets.... well, lets just start with saying dont feed crickets to your mantids ! They are not only a threat, they are dirty and germ carrying. I found roches are more healthyer, if anything, flies works great for me with a lil peace of fruit hanging off a thread.

SORRY FOR THIS LONG MESSEGE, just want to cover some stuff...

Now for my exotics. The violin i ordered, when araved, was weak and didnt eat for 2 days and the 3rd day droped dead. No reason. No Idea... have pics and a video somewhere if you want to see it.

My orchid mandis, perfictly fine, all of a sudden. Got weak and died 2 days later. She was an l5.

Now my Giant asian female, eats her limbs off ! No reson, No Idea...

So what im tring to get to is. Whats going on ? Im covering everything i humanly possible i can minipulate, watching over them like a hawk, and caring for them like lil babies.

Am i missing something ? Doing something wrong ? Maybe over doing something ? Or is it just that the mantis is its own personality and of the 200 that hatch ONLY certain rate will survive becuse of genetics ?

I LOVE this hobby, just, of all the things i ever rased nothing was this uncertin...

PS: Why cant house roches and ants die so easy......LOLOLOLOL

Ill top the roch and ants off with RAID and they live, I feed my mantis food and water and it dies !?

PPS: I dont know where i was going with all this, but over time. Just wanted ppl to kno even fully caring for them... $h!# Happends... I guess...

PPPS: This is alot cheaper then Remote Helicopters !!!


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## Ghozt (Mar 11, 2010)

ALSO !!!

Thank everyone for support on my mantids !

Im not tring to smash the morale on these lil guys,,, its just that its all we can do for them and love them as long as you can !

PS: Im off to buy more.... LOLOLOLOL


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 11, 2010)

U r a mantis loon!




hahah, the disease u have is catchy too , so be careful! We all have those troubles to with our mantis and I like how u wondered why roaches and ants just don't die



! I've often wondered that myself! Specially the thousand leggers, dear God, why thousand leggers????????????????????????????????? Just don't have a reason for them is what I a m thinking! Don't fret about the asian, didn't u believe us about the bad leg?


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## Rick (Mar 11, 2010)

Here we go again. There is nothing wrong with crickets. If you have problems with crickets it because you are not caring for them right, or the place you got them from wasn't caring for them right. Get them from a reputable source and take care of them and you won't have problems. I have never, ever had a cricket eat on a mantis.

I am not sure what you're doing wrong. I keep almost all mantids the same way and have few issues. However, we all have issues from time to time in this hobby. Several months ago I lost almost all of mine for an unknown reason.


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 11, 2010)

I have had a cricket or let's say more than one, eat on something other than their food, they have ate, each other, my superworms, and my mantis and just the other day,.... and this really pissed me off, my medinca ooth!



(can't even spellit now) ate half way thru it...






If I would of seen which one did it, I would of bit his head off!


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## Ghozt (Mar 11, 2010)

crickets are the devil !


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## Rick (Mar 11, 2010)

I disagree. I do know people have had them chew on a molting mantis or an ooth. But then again all food should be removed around ooths and molting mantids. I personally have not had any such issues. If you have your bases covered with cricket care, then your problem lies elsewhere.


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 11, 2010)

Crickets are cute and fascinating in their own right. I kept a couple as pets and I am trying to get as good as I can in raising them so I can have a continuous cricket colony.

Just feed them one at a time to the mantises and they are perfectly fine! Sometimes, I even add the extra and probably unnecessary precaution of killing a cricket and hand feeding it to a mantis if the mantis recently molted, in case the cricket is able to bite the more vulnerable shell of the mantis' arms. Also I never keep prey in a mantis container, I make sure they eat their dinner! Sometimes of late I would put several fruit flies in and close the container, but if the mantis is about to molt soon I hand feed them.

Back in the fall when I collected wild Chinese mantises, some died within days of capture. Jade died three days after I brought her in, and I have no idea. She never ate no matter what I did. Peridot died soon after starting to lay an Ooth, she was found dead stuck on the bottom with the beginnings of an ooth laid. All of them were adults and old age, but I realize that even nymphs can drop dead unexpectedly. I consider myself rather lucky that all 8 of my mantises are all going strong and have had very few issues aside from Fortune losing his left antennae when molting in transit from L1 to L2 (it has since grown back) and Nereid's near mismolt resulting in twisted antennae and the various odd mysteries concerning why Angel is growing faster and is 9th instar sub-adult while Fortune and Meek are 8th instar sub-adult if any of them are even sub-adult... and blah.

By the way... *KNOCKS ON WOOD*

Even Jade, who I had for just a few days, was a great pet and awesome mantis. She was brown and green at the same time, some parts of her were brown and some green, she was like marble. She also stayed on my hand the entire time at the Renaissance Faire. She's the only mantis I brought home from the Faire, although Amber I got from my Nephew's house and had at the Faire that day. Topaz, Emerald and Peridot were from Albright. I also had a male Chinese mantis I found in my yard that lived for about five days. Back then, I had relatively little experience with mantis keeping. What I do differently now is I use just paper towel and not much in the way of decorations - it is admittedly dull and bland in the mantis containers. I don't see why decorations would make any difference for the mantis, and besides, their containers are not the full extent of their range, I let them free roam (one at a time) on my desk and I have a rotation where one mantis has his or her turn.


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 12, 2010)

Yea, is my fault the ooth got ate, I left it in there to dry! and didn't think they would eat it


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## Ghozt (Jun 10, 2010)

Ghozt said:


> Well, let me start with saying that I have always been fascinated with Mantids ! I have caught many in my life. Then, I decided to buy a few. I went to Rebecca at mantisplace.com. Got my 1st batch. I got 3 Asian mantis. 1 Died right away, 1 mis-molted and lost a leg and died and 1 to this day i have. Adult male Asian mantis named Cell. So at this part of my message let me say that i have been reading on mantids and breeds and the climate the are used to living in heat and humidity. With knowing this two still died. Then I ordered another batch of mantis... I got 2 adult budwings, african mantis and another asain mantis.
> 
> All for odd resons died. Even following the guidlines to there habitat weather. But this time when my mantids died it was from a verity of sicknesses. Budwing had some blue goo driping out the back end, Other budwing tried to lay an ooth and 3 days later died, all other mantids just where found dead. So now at this point i went back and thoght things thru... FOOD, WATER, HEAT, HUMIDITY...
> 
> ...


This is an update since the post above:

I feed my mantis flies and I give them distilled water to drink and to myst. So far none died out of the blue. So I had to rule out the Water source in Las Vegas or the crickets having drank the tap water before I bought them and transfered over. Or, the crickets from what I heard lose there nutritional value after 24hours and become poison if not cared for. So other food I tried was: (1) Feeder Gold Fish, of the 5 mantids i tried only 1 ate the fish. Water was fresh.

(2) Wild Bees, mantids LOVED THEM ! Noticed the mantids i feed the bees off to molted nice within days, and other mantids that molt at the same time as the mantids that ate the bees, molted 5 days after.

(3) Roaches, Mantids where attracted to them the second I droped them into there cage. Really filled my mantids up well.

(4) Meal Worms, Mantis only ate them when almost starving, most of my mantids never touched them, or they are scared of them. LOL

(5)Moth / Butterfly, rare i feed them off. But the mantis LOVED THEM !

(6) Flies, best feeder ! Easy, clean, quiet, fast, cheap...

Ok, now that I said all that. I want to say I havent had any just randomly die. Of my collection of 48 mantids I have in captivity, there all doing fine as long as I filter any food transferd to there cage. So this replay goes to all the ppl that where concerned of my issues.


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## PhilinYuma (Jun 10, 2010)

Great news. Ghozt, and congratulations on turning things around in such a short time.

I think that you have been given some misinformation about crix, though; their nutritional value doesn't disappear after 24 hours (after what, purchase?) but as Rick often points out, they need to be given some good food for a few days before being fed to the mantids, and they need healthy conditions.

Your variety of food is great, and I agree about the bees. I also think that they promote egg laying.


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## Rick (Jun 10, 2010)

Ghozt said:


> This is an update since the post above:
> 
> I feed my mantis flies and I give them distilled water to drink and to myst. So far none died out of the blue. So I had to rule out the Water source in Las Vegas or the crickets having drank the tap water before I bought them and transfered over. Or, the crickets from what I heard lose there nutritional value after 24hours and become poison if not cared for. So other food I tried was: (1) Feeder Gold Fish, of the 5 mantids i tried only 1 ate the fish. Water was fresh.
> 
> ...


LIke Phil said, that thing about crickets isn't true. As far as bees go, don't use honeybees. THey may be the best choice, but they are in a decline and they are major pollinators.


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## massaman (Jun 10, 2010)

well what about yellow jackets they are another pollinator source but too bad no one can figure out how to have yellow jacket hives to compensate the honeybee situation and I still feed mine honeybees and not so concerned over anything they maybe in decline but maybe someday they will explode in a overpopulation as some animals have done in the past!


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## massaman (Jun 10, 2010)

i dont see honeybees as much of a decline where I am at being we got some pine trees that leak sap on their leaves and stuff and its loaded with honey bees and yellow jackets!


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## PhilinYuma (Jun 10, 2010)

I think I've provided a URL for "colony collapse disorder" (bees are dying and we don't know why") states before, but this time I'll post a map since it has the copyright info, such as it is in this case.





Check out your own state. As you can see, Ghozt and I are OK.

Those in endangered states may chose to capture bees for food or not, but an informed decision should take into account the following:

A hive can contain from 40,000-70,000 bees at one time toward the end of the summer.

The queen lays about 2,000 eggs/day to replace losses through mortality (old age and predation).

A worker bee lives from about 4-5 weeks but does not forage for pollen/nectar until it is about three weeks old (it does work in the hive until then) so any bees taken at flowers normally have no more than two weeks of life left and usually much less.

Bees can travel up to six miles to find pollen, so your flowers, among others, may be serving several hundred thousand bees. Surely they are unlikely to miss a few!


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## ismart (Jun 11, 2010)

Thanks for the info Phil!


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## MantidLord (Jun 11, 2010)

Yeah, never give mantids vegas tap water. I don't even drink it. It's nice to know that there's not a decline of bees here, though.


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