# I.diabolicum deaths from crickets



## robsorchids (Feb 4, 2008)

i had 3 of these left, and ran out of flies last week, so i fed some tiny crickets to 2 of them, the both died the next day!

the one i feed with a fly instead survived (as usual they allways have fruit flys)

are crikets poisonous to idolomantis?

i feed the same crikets to all my other mantis except violin and ghost, i usualy never feed crikets to diabolicum, but as i ran out i didnt have much choice.

any light shed on this would be appreciated so i dont make the mistkae again

thanks

rob


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## macro junkie (Feb 4, 2008)

robsorchids said:


> i had 3 of these left, and ran out of flies last week, so i fed some tiny crickets to 2 of them, the both died the next day!the one i feed with a fly instead survived (as usual they allways have fruit flys)
> 
> are crikets poisonous to idolomantis?
> 
> ...


i ran out of flys..so i feed them 1 maggot each for 1 day..lucky for me 2 days later i had loads more hatching.put it this way! .i would never feed them crickets or locust..but from what i read others have done it and it was fine..this is only what iv red tho.i bet your sad..what instar where they?i have a pair at sub adult..amazing species


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## Moosashi (Feb 4, 2008)

what were the crickets eating before you fed them to the mantids?


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## robsorchids (Feb 4, 2008)

Moosashi said:


> what were the crickets eating before you fed them to the mantids?


hi thanks for the replys,

they were crikets not locusts, and were feeding on whatever the bran stuff is in the tubs they come in, i know that carrots can kill mantis so theres no possibilty of carotene poisoning.

they were L7 i still have one left, hopefully this one will make it to adult hood, its been trial and error with these as i havent kept them before,

started of with 5, lost 2 from over misting despite not wetting them directley, stopped misting and they were doing fine, then just one feed of criket and they die.

i just dont understand what happend?

my violins have been realy easy to keep, havent had any problems, ther also fed fruit flys.

i dont think i will ever feed crikets to species that want flying insects again.

they were so cute as well, and just starting to the the 'arms up' defensive behaivour thats so characteristic of this species.

rob


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## macro junkie (Feb 4, 2008)

your feeding frute flys to L7 idols. :huh: ?


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## Juergen (Feb 4, 2008)

Hello rob,

no crickets for Idolos. Take flies, butterflies, moths, bees, wasps and other "flying" insects, but no crickets.

Regards,

Juergen


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## Rick (Feb 4, 2008)

95% of my mantids are fed crickets. Crickets are fine for food.


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## tier (Feb 4, 2008)

In my opinion there is no food as terrible as crickets. When I started breeding mantids I lost a lot of them because of feeding crickets. But maybe it is just because of all the protozoa inside all the crickets you can buy over here in germany ;-) Maybe your crickets over there are healthier ;-)

regards

I never had any problems with crickets fed to Hierodula membranacea, by the way.


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## Mantida (Feb 4, 2008)

robsorchids said:


> they were crikets not locusts, and were feeding on whatever the bran stuff is in the tubs they come in


That may be your problem right there.

Company bran isn't the best. Crickets that are unhealthy have a lot of bad bacteria and other nasties floating around in their gut, which will make the mantis sick. I learned the hard way when I directly fed Petco crickets to my mantids without letting them clean out their system. I lost every single mantis that ate that day.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2008)

Mantida said:


> That may be your problem right there.Company bran isn't the best. Crickets that are unhealthy have a lot of bad bacteria and other nasties floating around in their gut, which will make the mantis sick. I learned the hard way when I directly fed Petco crickets to my mantids without letting them clean out their system. I lost every single mantis that ate that day.


yes the bran is what was allready inside the pack, whats the best food to give to crikets before feeding to mantis?

all the others were fine from feeding this.

i cetainly wont be feeding crickets to any species that need flying insects again.

yes i have been feeding fruit flys to my idolos as i havent been able to get a hold any thing larger at present, they will soon be to small for them to accept.

i was thinking of culturing some squat flys, but you see, im very squemish of large maggots!

can they be reared the same way as fruit flys?

can anyone help me start a culture?

i feed my fruit flys a mix of oats banana and a little brown sugar sometimes.

thanks

rob


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## robsorchids (Feb 5, 2008)

Guest said:


> yes the bran is what was allready inside the pack, whats the best food to give to crikets before feeding to mantis?all the others were fine from feeding this.
> 
> i cetainly wont be feeding crickets to any species that need flying insects again.
> 
> ...


that was me who posted that


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## macro junkie (Feb 5, 2008)

hey u didnt asnwer my Q..are u feeding tiny little frute flys to L7 idols?u said frute flys..did u mean frute flys or nornall flys?


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## Birdfly (Feb 5, 2008)

Guest said:


> i was thinking of culturing some squat flys, but you see, im very squemish of large maggots!can they be reared the same way as fruit flys?
> 
> can anyone help me start a culture?
> 
> ...


Squatts are the common name for the larvae of the house/curly winged fly, the former bought from an angling centre and the latter a live food supplier.

Pinkes are commonly known as greenbottle larvae, these are easily taken but not as meaty as the bluebottle who's larvae are normally just refered to as "maggots" in uk angling terms.

Even small _Idolomantis_ can usually manage all three of these flie species but it would probably be best to be sensible.

As larvae they all feed on decaying meats with the possible exeption of house/curly winged flies which i always find breeding in rotten vegtable matter on the compost heap and green wheely bin!!

They are usually cleaned at an angling centre and covered in some dry, powdered ,vegtable matter to stop them from sweating to much, harmless but vigorous wrigglers  

All these flies can be gut loaded with honey, and fruit juice/puree, i like to leave them a few days to fly around and develope their flight muscles and gut load up before i feed them to my mantids, but the odd fly can be fed straight to really hungry mantids with no ill effect.

I pupate/hatch loads of flies during the summer and rely more on roaches during winter unless i have speciffic fly feeders and never have this problem with flies not hatching, a difference i've noticed is that i let my maggots pupate in the ground in my greenhouse and more recently in a bucket of soil, i wonder if this makes a difference like more constant or stable relative humidity/light/warmth??

Crickets i dont even want to go there, but they are not the most numerous prey item on _Idolomantis_ natural diet, which would contain more flies, bee's, wasps, moths/butterflies and flower visiting bugs and beetles and even the pollen that these animals would surely be carrying.

Crickets not kept satisfactory enough eg pet shop windows, half price packs, damp, cold, dehydrated and starved can be a death sentance to even the strongest mantis species.

sorry to bore you all, i didnt realise how much i'd written


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## Christian (Feb 5, 2008)

This is the first thing regarding _Idolomantis_ rearing: *never never* feed crickets to them!

The second thing is: be sure of a surplus of several fly species!

Crickets, at least the raised ones, have become for some reason the worst mantid food. They may be acceptable for _Tenodera, Sphodromantis, Hierodula_ and other robust taxa, but Empusids in particular do not well on them. There are differences though: some, as _Blepharopsis_, take them well, others like _Gongylus_ support them occasionally, and others like _Idolomantis_ die instantly.

The reasons are not easy to assess. The most obvious factor, which leads to the death of even the strongest species, is some sort of illness obviously spreading through the stocks of the cricket breeders. That's why I did not feed one single cricket for years. Self-bred crickets may be well-suited, but the ones from the pet shops are crappy - at least for mantids. As vertebrate guts readily deal with most insect diseases, and herp guys are the main "target" of the cricket suppliers, there is no need for them to improve the product.

The second, more mysterious problem is indeed the "_Idolomantis_ syndrome": regardless of the crickets used, they succumb in most cases upon the consumption of crickets and, in some cases, even locusts. I fed succesfully roaches without ill effects, so it isn't just that thy don't support anything but airborne prey. If this would be the case, they would also die after cannibalising a conspecific. It seems to be something with the crickets themselves. It is impossible to say, though, if_ Idolomantis_ doesn't support the cricket tissue or if crickets always carry some latent illness which doesn't affect them or other mantids but Empusids, particularly _Idolomantis_ and _Gongylus_.

By the way, carrots fed to prey insects don't kill mantids! Who invented this? :huh:


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## Mantida (Feb 5, 2008)

@robsorchids,

Crickets do best fed on a protein base and some sugar and honey mixed in. Dog food, cat food, or fish food are sufficient protein bases, crickets seem to love them. I usually use fish food and freeze dried blood worms, and will occasionally drop a frozen shrimp in a cup and microwave it, slice it up, and give it to the crickets. Honey and bee pollen they love mixed in, since crickets are suckers for sweets.

@Christian and robsorchids,

Carrots fed to prey items don't kill mantids, but make them vomit and get sick a bit. Carrots have a natural enzyme in them that kind of acts like a weak pesticide. Probably disrupts something in the gut of the mantis. Personally, I've never had it happen to me, since I steer clear of veggies for my feeders. They are most likely sprayed with insecticides unless you are sure they're 100% organic.


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## macro junkie (Feb 5, 2008)

Mantida said:


> since I steer clear of veggies for my feeders. They are most likely sprayed with insecticides unless you are sure they're 100% organic.


but if u buy the vegies from suopermarket they be fine..if we can eat it so can they?are u on about wild vegies or shop bought ones&gt;?


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## Mantida (Feb 5, 2008)

macro junkie said:


> but if u buy the vegies from suopermarket they be fine..if we can eat it so can they?are u on about wild vegies or shop bought ones&gt;?


No.

If you buy veggies from the supermarket, they'll have pesticides on them. Farmers spray their crops. Crops go through factory processing, and finally are packaged out to supermarkets.

Of course we can eat veggies with pesticides and be fine. They didn't design pesticides to kill or harm humans. Just crop-eating insects like locusts.


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## Christian (Feb 6, 2008)

So pesticides are good for me, but not for my mantids? Hm, this argumentative logic is far from being comforting... :blink:  

 Really, crickets are omnivorous, so there is no reason not to feed them plant material as well. Of course a good protein load prior to feeding them to the mantids is a really good thing. However, I don't trust those buggers anymore until I will have the possibility to rear my own ones.


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## Rob Byatt (Feb 6, 2008)

Christian said:


> By the way, carrots fed to prey insects don't kill mantids! Who invented this? :huh:


This one mistifies me also. As mantida said before, it stemmed from the rumour that carrots have natural pesticides in them. Probably a load of rubbish as I know of not one person that has had losses from feeding carrots to prey species.

*Anyway*, this rumour is fundamentally floored - if carrots are so 'toxic' then why are the crickets still alive that eat them ? :lol: 

I too have suffered HUGE losses after feeding 'bad' crickets. I have spoken at length to a parasitologist friend of mine at Liverpool Uni; he thinks it maybe be a microsporidial infection.


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## tier (Feb 6, 2008)

Some people think it could be Apansporoblastina, yes. But there are a lot of parasitistic Protozoa.

regards


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## robsorchids (Feb 10, 2008)

sorry for the late reply,

i still need to get some larger flys, the local angling shop just shut down, so i still need to get some pupa from somewhere, and then culture them.

there still on fruitflys,yes they are a bit small for them, but they still strike and eat loads.

if anyone can help with some pupa i would be really greatfull, i would pay for them too.

thanks

rob


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## Mantida (Feb 10, 2008)

You can buy house fly pupae in great bulk at spider pharm.  

http://spiderpharm.com/feeders/hf/houseflies.htm

They also have breeding kits if you want to raise your own from maggots.


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## robsorchids (Feb 12, 2008)

Mantida said:


> You can buy house fly pupae in great bulk at spider pharm.  http://spiderpharm.com/feeders/hf/houseflies.htm
> 
> They also have breeding kits if you want to raise your own from maggots.


thanks!

sadly i have since lost other adults of other species, the head capsules went red.

i wont be using crikets again

i bought some locusts today, i will starve them for a of day tp clear the gut and give them a mix of fishfood and honey, but i dont know if they will take this like crikets do?

thanks

rob


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## macro junkie (Feb 12, 2008)

robsorchids said:


> thanks!sadly i have since lost other adults of other species, the head capsules went red.
> 
> i wont be using crikets again
> 
> ...


why arent u feeding them flys?


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## macro junkie (Feb 12, 2008)

oh u mean for other speices..my mistake..i thought u ment aboput the idols..i was going to say only fed them flys moths stuff like that..i guees u know that all ready tho..

sorry to hear about your loss..


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## Mantida (Feb 12, 2008)

Do not feed Idolomantis locusts, they may even die from locusts. Idolomantis can ONLY take flying insects!

If you're talking about other species, make sure the locust is small enough so the mantis can take it. Locusts may take honey and fish food, but they're usually vegetarians.


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