# Crossbreeding



## Rib

Is it possible to cross breed mantis? Has anyone ever heard or tried it? p.s. Im not implying that I plan or intend to try it, just came into my mind and I thought what better place to get an answer


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## Samzo

if it has the same beginning name i think. Like breeding differnt creobroter sp. is possible.


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## Johnald Chaffinch

photos of two species and their cross-breed would be amazing


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## Jwonni

this had crossed my mind as well like dogs can


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## Johnald Chaffinch

when the second word in their scientific name is different is that always a different species or is it sometimes a sub-species or something? is it just the sub-species that can crossbreed?


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## Rick

I have tried many times to crossbreed different species. Only one time did I get a good mating. That time was between a female chinese and a male H. Grandis. The female had already been mated by one of her own kind and the nymphs were chinese. But I have had many close ones of the males mounting the females but never actually getting a good connection. From my little experiments I have concluded that males seem to go off of visual cues when it comes to mating as males of different speices will mount almost any female of another species as long as they are compatible size wise. So in a nutshell I have not been sucessful.


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## hortus

first word is genus

second is species

if you cross breed the species you get a new species a hybrid

you can only get a sub species when you breed the same species and evolution takes effect and changes them to be diffrent from the parent species

i think thats how it works


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## Joe

I've almost had succes with my african mantis and european mantis mating (picture of it below), but the european was smaller than normal when i caught it, if longer, they would have connected and mated with ease, even my male chinese mantis attempted to mate with an african mantis multiple times. I've also almost had a D. lobata nearly mate with a ghost, chinese mate with Talmonica, and even D. lobata nearly mating with a Violin!. but succesfully cross breeding is nearly impossible because of each mantid's outline, body, and sexual organs. cross breeding can sometimes be easy, but almost is always half way succesful. supplied with diff species of mantids that have a basic outline and if each are nearly the same size, then you can give cross breeding a try, but with trying to mate a chinese mantis with a violin mantis, its impossible because of their totally different body outlines.





heres a pic of my european mantis male attempting to mate with a female african mantis

Joe


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## Johnald Chaffinch

what about artificial insemination??

extracting the sperm and getting it inside the female would be hella tricky though. anyone got any ideas regarding this? just imagine if you was the first one to get the first proper hybrid, you might get on the news 8)


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## Andrew

Even if you did get them to successfully mate, there wouldnt be any offspring.

Thanks,

Andrew


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## Johnald Chaffinch

couldnt some species be close enough genetically for it to happen


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## Rib

I was thinking it cant be that far fetched becuase alot of creatures can cross breed, I was just curious what experiences people had of it with Mantids. I wonder if anyones ever succeded


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## jandl2204

Next year i will be attempting a large scale crossbreeding program (private program)

generally speaking you will find that small scale attempts will get you know where. You are more likely to find the species fail to mate or mating results in non viable nymphs or simply that the female had produced an ooth a sexually whith the males ''sperm''having been unused or useless.

Lee.

if i have any success that i will let you know. Remember tho donkey &amp; horse = mule mules as you know are incapable of repoduction. :roll:


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## PseudoDave

I dont see the point in hybrids, unless it's possible in the animals natural ranges. Where it's not natural, it shouldn't happen.


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## jandl2204

I suppose many ''did not see the point'' in selectively breeding wolves, until of courses that is people became aware of the huge variation in shape size colour of which man was able to breed them into. Dogs seem very popular more so than the wolves they one where.

Simply it an interesting aspect of the hobby, the ability to manipulate the mantids we are most interested in and possibly ''bind'' them together to form something new and possibly wonderful.

Besides many have already had success as such, many on the sphod mantids L,B,G,and C have already been crossed, generally because some have not been able to correctly identify them. Using a more exotic species would simple yield some interesting results.

Regards Lee


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## PseudoDave

Also potentially painful, deadly deformities could also be yielded. Also, if one species is adapted to a particular location, even if the overall environment is 'similar' and this species is then crossed with another, then the poor animal might have the mind to behave and respond like one species, but be unable to due to the physical nature of it's other parent. You only have to look at some of the 'jungle corn snakes' to see this, totally disgusting cross in my opinion, so many get damage to their noses because they want to burrow like one parent, but has the snout of the other.


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## nympho

"I suppose many ''did not see the point'' in selectively breeding wolves, until of courses that is people became aware of the huge variation in shape size colour of which man was able to breed them into. Dogs seem very popular more so than the wolves they one where."

Creating hybrids is totally different biologically to artificial selection within a single species such as the wolf to dog example. The first will, at best produce offspring that are themselves infertile dead-ends that could not breed, like mule offspring of horse x donkey. The second is just a man-made and speeded up version of evolution of one or two features within a species. I personally disagree about artificial selection of the wolf. Although dogs are useful to man, the original animal is far more interesting and beautiful and dogs are just a sad reflection by comparison.


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## jandl2204

''Creating hybrids is totally different biologically to artificial selection within a single species such as the wolf to dog example''

For instance the German Shepard, this was a cross breed. Many dogs are in fact cross bred.

I have not look this up as of yet but I think to declare a species as new he number needs only to exceed 1000.

fair point to argue dogs came from one species, but that is besides the point since then there have been many species created, there are in fact many species of wolf, your argument is somewhat floored. But he point is perfectly acceptable, however many mantids have similar behavioural patterns and it would be very easy once genetics were accounted for to create a viable cross.

Lee


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## jandl2204

haha i floored!!!! i need to proof read i ment flawed


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## PseudoDave

Dog breeds, are not different species, My bull terriers are as much 'dog', as a great dane, dogs are dogs, the same way people are people but with variations.

It's just my personal view that if something was not designed to meet something else in the wild, it shouldn't happen. You'll also have the problems of one mantis potentially having an immunity to something that the other parent doesnt, what happens to the poor little ones? They may get the best of both worlds, they may get neither.


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## jandl2204

That is fair enough. But i don't think any of them were designed to live withing any of my containers either. Regardless the mantids livein an artificial envionment and are bombarded with bacteia and viruses which they would never encounter in the wild. lets just hope that it works out. Ill be using sp which have simiar characteristics etc so we will see, i don't want to argue over this now, if i get around to the project ill provided the results along with any failures.

Cheers Lee


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## PseudoDave

Nobody was arguing i was stating my reasons for why i think it's a bad idea. You're correct the containers wouldnt have been encountered, but thats not what this is about, it's about meeting another species, that's all.


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## Jesse

I suggest that all of you interested in crossbreeding read some invertebrate biology and genetics books. Having an imagination is healthy, wasting your time may not be.


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## Ian

well said


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## jandl2204

I suggest that all of you interested in crossbreeding read some invertebrate biology and genetics books. Having an imagination is healthy, wasting your time may not be.

lol, yea true, I have an A at A level biology fairly good grounding on the subject to start off a project, my friend is also studying towards his PhD in environmental sciences so together I should think my imagination and my knowledge will yield some good results.

--- When looking at the module marks for my a level genes and genetic engineering was at 96% ---

Lee


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## ellroy

Hi Lee,

Well done on your good grades! I'm sure you've also noticed that a lot of scientific research starts with someone elses proven ideas so it can be a real asset to take on board suggestions from other experienced people.

It's understandable that some people are opposed to the idea of cross-breeding ( I personally don't think it's very productive but thats just _my_ opinion ) but fair play if you want to research it. I would say though that one of the fundamentals of your idea is breeding different _species_ although you seem unclear about exactly what defines a species. If you expect your research to have any kind of credibility you will need to be pretty clear about the basic facts.

Hope you can take this as constructive critisism rather than a personal attack which it is sincerely not meant to be.

Good luck

Alan


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## jandl2204

he is an idea of what ill be doing and a SHORT methodology

Here’s a nomenclature format which may seem a little daunting, but will help in the long run, especially when you consider your working at a generation level over many months:

Here’s your starter combinations:

Male Sphodromantis (Sm) + Female Bud Wing (Bf) = (SmBf)

But also do

Female Sphodromantis (Sf) + Male Bud Wing (Bm) = (SfBm)

Why?

(SmBf) may prove to be sterile, but you may be able to breed with (SfBm)

Genetics are often sex related.

For your next crosses you want to go backwards :

So for male (SmBf)m

(SmBf)m + Sf = (SmBf Sf)x but also do (SmBf)m + Bf = (SmBf Bf)x

Then female (SmBf)f

(SmBf)f + Sm = (SmBfSm)x but also do (SmBf)f + Bm = (SmBf Bm)x

Where X equals the new sex

Lee. has this cleared some of my project up?

i dodn't actually mention what i am doing other than that i am going to attempt a crossbreeding program.


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## Andrew

Like Jesse said, you are waisting your time...and your definately not going to get any offspring from a sphodromantis x parasphendale mating.

Its more complicated than just getting them to mate.

Thanks,

Andrew


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## Jesse

I was thinking of breeding some norway rats with grey squirrels to see if I can get rats with puffy tails that can jump from branch to branch.

Maybe you should start by looking up Ernst Mayr's Biological Species Concept.

You should also know that some species in the genera Parasphendale and Sphodromantis have overlapping distributions.

Crossbreeding within genera has been done. Stagmomantis limbata and carolina have been crossed with almost no offspring resulting, the offspring that did hatch died shortly after. I have unknowingly (at the time) crossed two Sphodromantis species, The oothecae did hatch but the resulting offspring ended up being sterile. I wouldn't expect intergeneric crossbreeding to have better results (if any results)


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## jandl2204

''Its more complicated than just getting them to mate''

:roll: I already know. Do you critics understand I said this is a project! And the sphod and bud wing were used as an example. You should not be too quick to assume as you may start to look foolish.

If I were to take you serious then where would that get me? By not attempting anything I would get nowhere. I have read all the applicable literature and will continue to do so, but you have been too quick to assume that it will fail; some of you seem very pessimistic. pessimistic or apathetic can't decide.

fair point that it may like fail but at least i will attempt something.

Baaah

Lee


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## nickyp0

it works for dogs,cats,birds,moths,and butterflies why not mantids?


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## Jesse

> it works for dogs,cats,birds,moths,and butterflies why not mantids?


As mentioned before, all domestic cats are of the same species _Felis catus_, all domestic dogs are of the same species _Canis familiaris_, and with birds, moths, and butterflies, only subspecies and intrageneric crosses have been done (in captivity or naturally in the wild). In nearly all the intrageneric crosses, the resulting offspring were sterile. As i mentioned previously, intrageneric crosses have been done with mantids with poor results, besides what is the point of crossbreeding two species that look very much alike(in the same genus), unless you are trying to prove they are of the same species or different subspecies of the same species?


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## yen_saw

Jesse, you have pointed out all the reasons. Just let them try it out and see if there is actually any feedback.


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## jandl2204

Yen, that was the point, lets not bother pointing out flaws when no one in this forum knows the outcome.  :wink:  

Lee


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## Jesse

> Jesse, you have pointed out all the reasons. Just let them try it out and see if there is actually any feedback.


I hear you Yen, I just didn't want someone to waste their time, but hey it isn't my time being wasted is it? I guess that is the only way some people learn. I also was trying to give people facts instead of speculation. But hey, what could an entomologist like me know?


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## Ian

yeah jesse..you know nothing..id leave it off...


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## Johnald Chaffinch

i know an easy way round this - slice their heads off and swap em over.


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## jandl2204

i do like your style john!!

But hey, what could an entomologist like me know???? curious what qualifications do you hold then? didn't know there were ''entomologists'' on this forum.

Lee.

btw i wont be wasting my time i find breeding fairly easy, rather than posting i could just spend the spare time on the hobby, simple.


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## yen_saw

Lee, i believed Jesse intention is good. The time is all yours, you can use it anyway you want. But personally i will only breed the species of the same kind. Horse + Donkey = Mule. I am sure this has been done before for mantis. I am also not an entomologist.


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## Jesse

> But hey, what could an entomologist like me know???? curious what qualifications do you hold then? didn't know there were ''entomologists'' on this forum.


I have a bachelor's degree in entomology from Purdue University. I am currently working on a master's degree in entomology. Enough about me though. The only reason I mentioned it, was because I felt that some people may not take what I say seriously unless I list my credential(s). I come to this forum to help people learn, and because I share the same general interest in mantids. There are actually other people who study mantids/other insects (not just as a hobby) that come to this forum, and give hobbyists some good information when needed. It should be appreciated, and they should not have to be forced to list their "qualifications" in order for people to believe what they say. I apoligize if how I replied previously seemed like a personal attack on anyone.


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## jandl2204

the question was no pun.

My intention was to find out something about yuo which is not on yuor profile.

Sorry if it seemed negative, am a little sharpe of recent, i have alot of deadlines to keep up with and alot of work which i wish to perfect. i should think you can relate.

As i posted yesterday i do have a phd student with whome iam research this area with and i think any finding would not only be interesting but benificial.

Lee (sorry fo sp's am in a rush)


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