# Hello from New Hampshire



## TNeal (Dec 19, 2006)

Lets see. A little bit about myself? Not much to tell. Right now I keep a taco bell dog, Tailess Whipscorpions, roaches, anoles and Geckos.

I have kept animals all of my life. My main interest for most of my life was aquatic critters. I used to breed tropical fish for the hobbyist and supplied angelfish, discus and lots of other fishes for New England.

I have always been interested in mantids. As a kid I would catch wild ones here and kept them as pets, always letting them go before winter set it. I was fascinated by their calm demenor and then their opposit hunting/feeding behavior.

As a kid I collected moth and butterfly cacoons and liked to watch them watch. Well it was quite a surprise when one of them, sitting on my desk, started releasing nymphs. I was sitting downstairs when I heard my little sister start to scream about bugs all over my desk. The whole family was fascinated. I knew nothing about them so I tried a little hamburger to feed them. I was astonished when some of them started to eat it. I called the university and they advised me to let them go as it was early april and they said they should be OK.

Well, there it is a little about myself. And what started my interest. Now I am here looking for information and recommendations. I am also looking for live animals.

I look forward to many chats and new mantid friends,

yours truly,

TNeal

One thing that really concerns me is that I have not seen a wild mantid in many years. They seem to have dissapeared. I was thinking of maybe breeding native ones and releasing the offspring.


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## Ian (Dec 19, 2006)

Hey TNeal, welcome to mantidforum! You are sure to find many reccomendationd on here, anything you want to know, just post up.

Speak to you soon.


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## Rick (Dec 19, 2006)

Welcome


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## Butterfly (Dec 19, 2006)

Welcome to the forum.


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## Shelbycsx (Dec 19, 2006)

Greetings TNeal!

Like you, I wish to breed and release mantids in my local area. For some strange reason they aren't very abundant which is really strange since there is soooooo much life (plant/animal/critters). I plan on getting legal mantids such as the grizzled bark mantis, euro mantis, etc. to help eat up the nasty little bugs eating all our different trees and plants that have no self defense capabilities other than the sentry gun I set up. But the gun winds up blasting the trees to peices, so I gotta get the mantids to do the dirty work. :twisted:


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