# L2 Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii



## clemsonfight

Okay I ordered an L2 Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii nymph the other day.....should be here soon I guess....anyway I was wondering, what should I feed it when it gets here? Fruit flies? Or will the tiny crickets they have at the pet store do okay?

I dont have any fruit flies on hand, how can I get some quickly without buying them? Thanks guys.


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## Ian

Hello, welcome to the forum  Best thing to do in the hot weather is chuck a bowl of banana outside, and that will soon attract the fruit flies. You may want to put a piece of cloth over the bowl, tie it with an elastic band or something, and make a small hole in the top of it. This way you can appraoch the bowl and just put your fingers over the hole.

Alternatively, you can get some micro crickets from you local pet shop, which do the job as well!

For future reference, www.livefoods.co.uk sell pretty good fruit fly cultures.


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## clemsonfight

> Hello, welcome to the forum  Best thing to do in the hot weather is chuck a bowl of banana outside, and that will soon attract the fruit flies. You may want to put a piece of cloth over the bowl, tie it with an elastic band or something, and make a small hole in the top of it. This way you can appraoch the bowl and just put your fingers over the hole.Alternatively, you can get some micro crickets from you local pet shop, which do the job as well!
> 
> For future reference, www.livefoods.co.uk sell pretty good fruit fly cultures.


Thanks for the helpful advice! Yeah they have microcrickets, just wasnt sure if that would be alright. I might try a little of both  

Anyway Ill use that in the future, but I knew I coudlnt right now, since It would take a while to get across continents lol


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## clemsonfight

> Hello, welcome to the forum  Best thing to do in the hot weather is chuck a bowl of banana outside, and that will soon attract the fruit flies. You may want to put a piece of cloth over the bowl, tie it with an elastic band or something, and make a small hole in the top of it. This way you can appraoch the bowl and just put your fingers over the hole.Alternatively, you can get some micro crickets from you local pet shop, which do the job as well!
> 
> For future reference, www.livefoods.co.uk sell pretty good fruit fly cultures.


Okay, I didnt have any bannanas so I put a few grapes out there. Hopefully that will do.


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## Ian

At that age, it doesn't really matter about varifying their diet to to much of an extent. As long as they are feeding well that is the main thing! May want to start intoriducting house flies, roacches and other flying insects when they are little larger.


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## clemsonfight

> At that age, it doesn't really matter about varifying their diet to to much of an extent. As long as they are feeding well that is the main thing! May want to start intoriducting house flies, roacches and other flying insects when they are little larger.


Here comes another stupid question from me....

How can I tell if these are microcrickets. They are fairly small, about 1 cm or so, maybe smaller, but the lady at the pet store, didnt seem too sure what a microcricket was so i got like 5 of their smallest, and figured I'd try it.


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## julian camilo

as far as im aware, theyre only called microcrickets because of their size, and thats only because theyre very young. they are the same species (achetus domesticus probably) and if given food etc will eventually grow to the size of other crickets.


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## rlechols

If the crickets you got are 1cm, chances are they are too big for an L2 P. Wahbergii. You will need fruit flies. If you are in the US, check out Petsmart, or call around and see if you can get them somewhere locally.


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## julian camilo

yeh thats true. wahlbergii are known for going stuff their own size or even bigger but at L2 youd be best to offer nothing bigger fruit flies. give it another moult or so and theyll be hunting down greenbottles and the like, crazy buggers.


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## clemsonfight

> If the crickets you got are 1cm, chances are they are too big for an L2 P. Wahbergii. You will need fruit flies. If you are in the US, check out Petsmart, or call around and see if you can get them somewhere locally.


Ok, cool, we have a petsmart, Ill just call them.

EDIT: They dont have any now, and dont know when they will get another shipment.

I guess I will try the fruit in a jar again....Last time though, when I got out there, ants were swarming all over it with 0 fruit flies lol.


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## 13ollox

you could place the jar in a bowl of shallow water ... then the ants wont be able to reach it !!! well thats the idea :lol: 

Neil


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## clemsonfight

> you could place the jar in a bowl of shallow water ... then the ants wont be able to reach it !!! well thats the idea :lol: Neil


LOL i wish that worked

Back when I was a kid, my dad and I got fed up with ants getting to my dog's food outside, so we tried putting floating her bowl in a bowl of water.....the ants SWAM across, and some of them walked on top of the ones swimming! We coudln't believe it! lol :lol:


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## Ian

Thats insane! Actually I would see no harm at all in feeding the ants to the mantids. I have fed ants many a time to hatchlings I've had, and they have just eaten them right off.


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## Justin

so ants work ok as feeders?


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## Ian

They sure do.


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## ellroy

Aphids would be worth a try too!

Banana is definitely your best bet for fruit flies


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## clemsonfight

> They sure do.


Heh then I might just try that if i dont get the fruit flies in time. We have plenty of ants around here lol


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## robo mantis

no don't feed them ants!!! ants kill baby mantids i learned the hard way


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## Ian

There are probably a totally different species to the ants over here in the UK.


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## robo mantis

> There are probably a totally different species to the ants over here in the UK.


? won't all ants attack


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## julian camilo

yes but the ants we have over here arent exactly very big/dangerous/fast. we have mainly lasius niger and lasius flavus, and i think so long as you dont put loads in at once, (one by one i guess) the mantis shouldnt have any problems. they have no problem eating more dangerous things (bees/wasps, stuff that stings), our ants here dont really have stings to speak of, well wood ants do but theyre much rarer than the lasius. ive never had to feed ants to mantids but i probably would if times were hard.


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## clemsonfight

> yes but the ants we have over here arent exactly very big/dangerous/fast. we have mainly lasius niger and lasius flavus, and i think so long as you dont put loads in at once, (one by one i guess) the mantis shouldnt have any problems. they have no problem eating more dangerous things (bees/wasps, stuff that stings), our ants here dont really have stings to speak of, well wood ants do but theyre much rarer than the lasius. ive never had to feed ants to mantids but i probably would if times were hard.


Well if i had to feed it ants, I'd do it only one at a time. Definitely wouldnt give them a chance to swarm. Even one by one, Id observe very carefully lol.


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## julian camilo

if you do it that way, i dont see it being a problem at all.


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## clemsonfight

Well I went to Petsmart today and they had some vials of flightless fruit fly cultures, so I picked up one. So problem solved, I guess


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