# Should I separate male ghost?



## Predatorhousepet (Apr 21, 2018)

I've had a male ghost living with 2 females since they were L4 and they all finally molted to adulthood recently, the male last. Ever since he molted, as soon as he was dry he was after the girls mating with them. He's been going back and forth between them for a week and I've only caught him off and alone once which is when I was able to get him to eat one fly but that was about 5 days ago. He's extremely thin now and I'm starting to get worried about him. I tried to feed him while he was still on a female but he just ignored me. The females eat of course, they don't seem to care he's back there. He only seems to have one goal in mind, should I try separating them and put him in a separate enclosure for a while to give him a break? I'm not sure he would eat even if I did but I don't have any experience with breeding mantises....are adult males always sex-crazed lunatics with no care for their own well-being?


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## Predatorhousepet (Apr 22, 2018)

While trying to feed the females some flies the one female the male was on top of made a B-line for the opening near the door hinge of their exo terra terrarium as soon as I opened the door. (She's never tried to escape before,  maybe she was just sick of all the nonstop mating, idk.) When she slipped through the crack she dislodged the male and he came off but he made her loose her balance. She lost her grip and fell to the next shelf down (about 2 feet.) She seems fine, no injuries and she's currently eating a fly. I took this opportunity to move the male to a different enclosure just to give everyone a break. I tried to feed him but he still seems uninterested in eating although he does track the flies movements, he just doesn't do anything about it. Is it common for male ghosts to stop eating when they've been mating? He's awfully skinny and hasn't eaten or drank anything in 5 days.


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## Predatorhousepet (Apr 23, 2018)

As suspected the male still didn't want to eat anything once I had him separated. He spent the entire time pressed up against the glass watching the females so I actually had to move his enclosure to another room where he couldn't see or smell them. He still paid no attention to the loose flies so I cut a mealworm in half and put the goo to his face and he took it from me. I was able to get him to accept 2 mealworms before he started ignoring me again. So at least he's had a little something to eat and won't starve to death. He's only a week into adulthood so when should I reintroduce him to make sure he's sexually mature enough to fertilize the females? The females are sexually mature, they are 16 and 20 days into adulthood. Roughly how long before they lay their first ooth so I know by when I'd need to take him out again?


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## Predatorhousepet (Apr 24, 2018)

Well, one of those questions was answered. One of the females laid her first ooth yesterday! It was in a bit of an inconvenient place so to retrieve it I had to cut apart the wooden dowels I had hot glued to hold mesh in place on the bottom of the screen lid. Then I hot glued the dowel piece onto the lid of another container I am using to incubate. I didn't want something similar to happen with the second female so I put her in a separate container with wooden sticks and a couple of flat wooden stirrers glued to the lid to give her some convenient options to lay the ooth. I know for sure she made a successful connection with the male so her ooth should be fertile.

I moved the other female back to her original cage and put the male in a separate enclosure away from both females. I'll put him back in with the first female when her abdomen starts looking like she's carrying another ooth that needs another round of fertilization. I can't leave him in with either female unless she needs to be fertilized because all he does is mate and ignores food.


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## Mantis Lady (Apr 24, 2018)

Gratz on the ooth


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## MantisGirl13 (Apr 27, 2018)

I have ghosts that I'm hoping to mate as well, once they are old enough. It is good to know that I should seperate my males from my females when they are adult!


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## Predatorhousepet (Apr 28, 2018)

Unfortunately the male ghost won't eat unless I force him and even then very little. He's extremely thin and has gotten a bit clumsy sometimes. He can grip twigs and hang upside down but if I have him in my hand he seems a bit wobbly. When I got him out to feed him he kept flying away and smacked into the wall a few times but other times he was able to land properly. He wasn't injured but seemed dazed and a bit lethargic so I gave him some honey and that seemed to perk him up a little. I  tried offering a whole fly and a roach with feeding tongs but he just slapped them away so I tried cutting them up but he would only eat very small amounts of the resulting goo. I put him back in with the first female but he doesn't seem all that concerned about trying to mate anymore (the other female is still in her ooth laying enclosure, nothing yet). He just hangs out behind the female occasionally moving his abdomen around but doesn't try to mount her. I am wondering if he is starting to decline because of his age or because he wore himself out with a week straight of mating and not eating. I know that male ghosts only live 6 to 8 weeks into adulthood but he's a little less than 2 weeks so he should have at least month to live. Is any of this normal behavior for a newly mature male ghost? Any suggestions on how to get him to eat? I've already tried all the tricks I know about.


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## Predatorhousepet (May 8, 2018)

I'd been unsuccessfully trying to get the male ghost to eat for the last couple weeks, at most he would take one or two bites and refuse the rest. His abdomen had become paper thin and he would hang out low in the enclosure or even on the ground. I was getting really worried about him. However, yesterday everything seemed to turn around. He has finally started catching his own prey and is hanging from the top of the enclosure again. Best guess is he absolutely drained himself with constant mating directly after becoming an adult and needed a few weeks to recover.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 9, 2018)

Yay! I am glad that he is getting better! Maybe feed him a lot, and then mate him again, if you are going to mate him again. Can you post a picture of him? Lets hope that the ooths are fertile!

- MantisGirl13


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## Predatorhousepet (May 9, 2018)

He definitely made connections with both females multiple times so I'm pretty sure the ooths are fertile but you never know. He had a really rough few weeks, I think the only reason he didn't starve to death was the tiny amounts of honey and bug guts I could occasionally get him to take a bite or sip of, although most of his diet seemed to consist of what he cleaned off his raptoral arms after batting away my offerings. When I would take him out to try to hand feed him he would fly away and smack into the walls, at first he didn't injure himself doing this but as he became more clumsy and weak he started to damage himself. He lost a leg and his antennae are much shorter than they should be. After that happened I would leave him in his cage when trying to feed him, as awkward as that was, he was much too confused to land safely should he try flying again. Eventually things did turn around and my persistence paid off, he started accepting the food I offered and was catching his own a couple days later. As you can see in the pic he is eating a fly he caught himself, he is alert and his abdomen has filled out again. When the females look like they are swollen with eggs again I will try mating him but they just laid ooth recently. 

https://ibb.co/nbW1Fd


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## MantisGirl13 (May 9, 2018)

Neat! I can't see the picture. Can you post it a different way?

- MantisGirl13


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## Mantis Lady (May 9, 2018)

Too bad i cant see the picture too  

A strong male you have with going after the female till he is very tired. B)


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## Predatorhousepet (May 9, 2018)

I tried uploading the pic here but I'm nearly out of room so it wouldn't let me. Instead I uploaded to photobucket and posted the link but apparently that doesn't work either...trying another way, let me know if this works. 

https://ibb.co/nbW1Fd

Pic of male ghost


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## River Dane (May 9, 2018)

You’re mantis is pretty awesome! I like the stripes in his leg flanges.

Not sure how to work photobucket, but I use Post Images. it’s pretty easy to navigate.


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## Mantis Lady (May 10, 2018)

You can upload pics to the forum too. Then use  the left side  of reply box to add your pics to the forum.


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## Predatorhousepet (May 10, 2018)

Little Mantis said:


> You can upload pics to the forum too. Then use  the left side  of reply box to add your pics to the forum.


Yes, I know. But I've already used up so much space with the pics I've previously uploaded to the forum that I am limited to pics 0.01MB or smaller and I wasn't able to compress the pic that small. This is why I was trying to use a photo hosting service instead.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 10, 2018)

The links worked pretty well. Nice pictures! It is good to see him eating!

- MantisGirl13


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## Mantis Lady (May 10, 2018)

I dont know how much space I have used yet. but I have saved the link before I dont have upload space left.


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## Predatorhousepet (May 11, 2018)

Had a close call with the male. He tried to mount one of the females and she turned around and tried to eat him! She had him held in both raptoral arms and was about to take a bite out of him. Luckily I was watching close so I was able to separate them using a pencil and feeding tongs. I wedged the pencil in between them so she couldn't bite him and that seemed to make her mad, she was viciously biting at the pencil trying to get around it. I was able to save the male without significant injury but he did end up with a bent wing. I wanted him to mate with the female that is about to lay her second ooth but I don't know if he'll be up for a second try. I did move him to a separate enclosure for his safety. He just started to act normally again and now this.


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## Mantis Lady (May 11, 2018)

good you could save the males life.


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## Predatorhousepet (May 11, 2018)

Thanks. I'm glad I could save him too. Hopefully this incident doesn't prevent him from trying to mate in the future. I'll make sure to monitor him super close if he is eventually able to mate.

I was actually planning on mating my orchids today, I was much more worried about the orchid female cannibalizing the male. The ghosts have lived together in the same enclosure since they were L4 and went thru 2 weeks straight of mating without incident. I guess I had become complacent and let my guard down, I didn't expect she would try to eat him.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 11, 2018)

Wow! That really was a close call! It is a good thing you were right there to save him! Did you have luck mating your orchids? 

- MantisGirl13


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## Predatorhousepet (May 11, 2018)

I haven't put the orchids together yet, I will soon but I guess I'm a little nervous to try after that close call with the ghosts. In the meantime I am trying to stuff her full of food so she won't be hungry or so interested in prey-like movement but she's like a bottomless pit. Everytime I put a fly in or hold a roach in front of her with feeding tongs she immediately grabs it. This makes me really nervous because the male is so tiny she could easily tear into him in less than a second. I said I would try once she stopped paying much much attention to prey but she isn't slowing down and she's eaten a lot more than I thought could fit inside her. A lot of the caresheets I've read said to keep feeding her while he's trying to mount so she has her hands full. Also to put them together in a large container so he can escape when he's done. Any one have any other tips to help him avoid being eaten? I do plan to watch very closely when he's trying to mount her, that seems to be the most dangerous part.

After his ordeal, my poor ghost's wing is now permanently bent at a 45 degree angle. I tried to straighten it out but it just goes back when I let it go. I watched a video about repairing live butterfly wings by gluing on a small cardboard brace. I was wondering if something similar could be done for his wing.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 11, 2018)

Sorry about the broken wing! I would just give your female a prey item that will take her a while to eat, and then introduce the male.

- MantisGirl13


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## Mantis Lady (May 12, 2018)

MantisGirl13 said:


> Sorry about the broken wing! I would just give your female a prey item that will take her a while to eat, and then introduce the male.
> 
> - MantisGirl13


That was I planning to do when Bob is old enough to mate with Cochise and keep a close eye on them.

The vid is interesting about repairing broken wings Maybe it could work for mantis wings too.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 12, 2018)

I didn't watch it, but i'm sure it is useful!

- MantisGirl13


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## Predatorhousepet (May 15, 2018)

I'm not going to try mating the male again, he is officially in retirement. He is at the end of his lifespan (males only live 6 to 8 weeks as adults) and he is already halfway into his 6th week. Besides that, he sustained damage from the last mating attempt when the female tried to eat him. The damage was not fatal but it affects his balance so he wouldn't be able to mount/dismount a female anyway. He has a bent wing, the other wings are jagged and frayed on the ends, he has shortened antennae and he is missing one leg and the front part of one of his raptoral arms. He would probably be able to function okay with one of these maladies but all together it leaves him somewhat handicapped. He is able to catch his own food and is still eating so he may live a bit longer but probably not more than a week...possibly two but I doubt it. He lived out his expected lifespan so when he does pass it will be due to old age and that's all we can hope for as mantis owners.


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## Mantis Lady (May 15, 2018)

Hope the male will live a few couple of weeks in his old age. But agree on dying of old age is better than be eaten by his mate.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 15, 2018)

Yes, you should definitely give him a nice, hopefully long retired life as an adult. 

- MantisGirl13


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## Predatorhousepet (May 24, 2018)

The male ghost passed this morning due to old age. He lived a day short of 8 weeks as an adult, that is a respectable age for him to live to, especially considering he was almost eaten by his mate a few weeks ago. I didn't expect him to make it this long quite honestly, I guess he proved my expectations wrong.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 24, 2018)

He lived to a ripe, old age. It is sad to lose a mantis, I lost an egyptian pygmy this morning, he was only adult for about a week and a half!

- MantisGirl13


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## Mantis Lady (May 26, 2018)

@MantisGirl13 and @Predatorhousepet: Sorry for your loss. It is sad when mantids die and leave an empty spot..


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## Predatorhousepet (May 26, 2018)

Yeah it does but at least with him I was expecting it and dying of old age really isn't bad. It could be so much worse, for example I just now had to euthanize one of my new L2 twig mantis nymphs because it mismolted. I found the poor thing twitching at the bottom of his cup only partially molted and half solidified into a grotesque twisted form. I would have tried to save him if I could but he had already dried that way and there was nothing I could do but end his suffering. I hate losing them to mismolts especially when they are so young, I'll take dying from old age any day over that.


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## MantisGirl13 (May 26, 2018)

I hate mismolts! It is so sad when you can't do any more for them, though I have saved at least three or four nymphs from dying from mismolts.

- MantisGirl13


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