# acting weird



## aje88 (Jul 19, 2009)

hey its been about 2 weeks since my L4 last molted and he has been acting very strange hes slowing down and is starting to bite hes never done this before.hes not dying i spray his habitat twice a day and make sures he drinks and i give him two ants every other day.if im doing something wrong please tell me or is he about to molt. after molt how long does it take for next molt.


----------



## cloud jaguar (Jul 19, 2009)

2 ants every other day? he's probably starving to death


----------



## PhilinYuma (Jul 19, 2009)

aje88 said:


> hey its been about 2 weeks since my L4 last molted and he has been acting very strange hes slowing down and is starting to bite hes never done this before.hes not dying i spray his habitat twice a day and make sures he drinks and i give him two ants every other day.if im doing something wrong please tell me or is he about to molt. after molt how long does it take for next molt.


He is starving, which is the only reason that he is eating ants. Give him crickets, house flies, even meal worms, now and then, or go out and catch some likely looking insects for him, like moths, butterflies, spiders etc. If you don't, he will soon stop biting and die.


----------



## superfreak (Jul 19, 2009)

&lt;_&lt; 

sigh.


----------



## Rick (Jul 19, 2009)

Arkanis said:


> 2 ants every other day? he's probably starving to death


Beat me to it. He isn't biting you, he is sensing the moisture in your skin. Unless it is a very small species or these are some big ants he needs more food.


----------



## Katnapper (Jul 19, 2009)

Your poor starving mantis is resorting to trying to take a bite of the only meat it's coming in contact with, in a last ditch effort to survive by any means. Yes, he's starving!!!! Feed him something appropriately sized, but substantial... not ants! Get out in your yard, or anywhere outside, and find him some proper food! You can skim the grass, bushes, weeds, etc. with an aquarium fish net and likely find something! And when you do, don't stop there.... collect several and offer them to him every day. If he eats them all... collect and offer more!


----------



## aje88 (Jul 19, 2009)

hes not starving and he has tons of water. like last night he was making the want to climb movement towards the celing. the reason is that they say if you feed them to much they get over weight and are forced to molt. so should i feed him every day. how many ant do i feed him.


----------



## aje88 (Jul 19, 2009)

i took some of your guys advice and it helped. i was walking around and found this speicies of ants in my yard ive never seen before. there huge and there pinchers are huge. its quite easy to to cut the pinchers off just get the tweezers and pluk them off. now im giving him three ants a day.one thing can i feed them cochroaches at L4 because i tried feeding him woodlouse since there like cockroaches and they seem to hard for his teeth. oh and over here where i am there aent much bugs . the ants are the only things in my yard that are able to fit in his arms. everything else is to big or to small.


----------



## Rick (Jul 19, 2009)

aje88 said:


> hes not starving and he has tons of water. like last night he was making the want to climb movement towards the celing. the reason is that they say if you feed them to much they get over weight and are forced to molt. so should i feed him every day. how many ant do i feed him.


They always want to go up. They don't get overweight. I feed mine every other day but I feed enough to keep the abdomens plump.


----------



## revmdn (Jul 19, 2009)

I think ants are a bad idea, last resort at best.


----------



## aje88 (Jul 19, 2009)

then wat do i feed it there are no worms or crickets here. and the moths and butterflies are like 2 times bigger than my L4


----------



## Rick (Jul 19, 2009)

aje88 said:


> then wat do i feed it there are no worms or crickets here. and the moths and butterflies are like 2 times bigger than my L4


Well you wouldn't feed worms anyways. Look under leaves or logs for crickets. Look in weeds for other bugs. Moths or butterflies may be larger but most of that is wings. I don't know what species it is so that would help. Or you could buy food like the rest of us.


----------



## Katnapper (Jul 19, 2009)

Catch moths or butterflies and just see if he will eat them. It definitely can't hurt to try and see!!! If they are too big and he will not eat them on his own, remove the wings and hand feed him the body with tweezers... either whole or cut it up into pieces he will eat. Please try it. Thanks!


----------



## planetq (Jul 19, 2009)

Ooh man, yeah I agree with everyone-

What Katnapper said: Try and cut off the wings of moths and put it in front of the mantis and let the moth move around. Your mantis is gonna eat it up!

What kind of species do you have again?

And what kind of moths are around you?

Because it seems to me if it's a general medium size to large size species L4s could easily take on the tiny moths that fly around light sources at night. (If it's a smaller species I could see it)

Just remember that mantises like food that taste good too.

They have a sweet tooth, and they are very enthusiastic about soft-bellied, meaty, flying insects.

Compared to the hard shelled and acidic little bite that are ants.


----------



## -MK- (Jul 19, 2009)

Dude, don't you have any pet stores near you? Petco sells the smaller crickets for 10 cents apiece where I live - if you go in and ask for 20 of the small crickets, you'll most likely pay for 20 and leave with more like 30 or 40. My Chinese L4s easily eat crickets half their size.

You could also just leave a light on outdoors at night and catch some moths. Even if they look too big, it's likely that your mantis can take them down and eat them. Just look at the video below of one of my Chinese mantids being thrashed around by a moth back when he was just a little L2. The quality isn't great, but you can see what's going on. This video is only about 1/3 the length of the entire battle, but after it was over, that little L2 had a full belly and all that was left of the moth were the wings. Now he's a big L5 (he molted today) because he gets fed as much as he can eat.

http://s912.photobucket.com/albums/ac323/M...nt=L2vsMoth.flv


----------



## Katnapper (Jul 19, 2009)

aje88 said:


> hes not starving and he has tons of water. like last night he was making the want to climb movement towards the celing. the reason is that they say if you feed them to much they get over weight and are forced to molt. so should i feed him every day. how many ant do i feed him.


How can you say and think you know he's not starving? On two ants a day at L4??? What species is it?

And who is "they" that say "if you feed them too much they get over weight and are forced to molt?" That's nonsense. He needs to eat more substantial meals than ants, and consistently every day or every other day. Ants are NOT a good feeder food anyway, and I recommend you avoid feeding them to him altogether.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Jul 19, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> How can you say and think you know he's not starving? On two ants a day at L4??? What species is it?And who is "they" that say "if you feed them too much they get over weight and are forced to molt?" That's nonsense. He needs to eat more substantial meals than ants, and consistently every day or every other day. Ants are NOT a good feeder food anyway, and I recommend you avoid feeding them to him altogether.


+1

There are chemicals in a mantis's body (hormones, as in "Both my teens have raging hormones.") that cause it to start building a new skin under the one it already has and then to shed the old skin. They are not controlled by how much the mantis eats.


----------



## ismart (Jul 19, 2009)

Go to your local pet shop and buy that dollars worth in small crickets. When a mantis moults thats a good thing. That means it is growing.


----------



## aje88 (Jul 19, 2009)

hey i just fed my mantis a butturfly and he loved it.


----------



## bassist (Jul 19, 2009)

The butterflies and moths are only bigger because of their wings the mantis should be able to take them no problem.


----------



## ismart (Jul 19, 2009)

aje88 said:


> hey i just fed my mantis a butturfly and he loved it.


Very good! just keep feeding it till it's nice and plump.


----------



## Katnapper (Jul 20, 2009)

aje88 said:


> hey i just fed my mantis a butturfly and he loved it.


That's wonderful... great job!  You're on the right track now, I think.  

Don't think you have to stop at just one feeder item a day though. If you can catch more, and he eats them... continue until he refuses the food and acts full. It won't hurt him a bit... well fed mantids are happy mantids!  

Please don't think we are all trying to be mean to you. We understand you've just started with the hobby. But when you come here asking for advice and based on what you are telling us we say he's starving, and you deny our opinions and suggestions by saying he's not, it gets a little frustrating.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Jul 20, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> That's wonderful... great job!  You're on the right track now, I think.  Don't think you have to stop at just one feeder item a day though. If you can catch more, and he eats them... continue until he refuses the food and acts full. It won't hurt him a bit... well fed mantids are happy mantids!
> 
> Please don't think we are all trying to be mean to you. We understand you've just started with the hobby. But when you come here asking for advice and based on what you are telling us we say he's starving, and you deny our opinions and suggestions by saying he's not, it gets a little frustrating.


+1  

Keep us updated on what else you are finding to feed him!


----------



## aje88 (Jul 20, 2009)

thx everyone oh and i put a beetle in his container but he doesnt eat it i think the exosceloten is to hard for his teeth.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Jul 20, 2009)

aje88 said:


> thx everyone oh and i put a beetle in his container but he doesnt eat it i think the exosceloten is to hard for his teeth.


Yes, I've had similar bad luck with meal worm beetles. I suppose you could take the wing cases (elytra) off, but it's easier and less gruesome to use something else. Have you thought of feeding him houseflies?

And before another kindly member points out that mantids don't have "teeth," their mantibles (equivalent of our lower jaw) are used for grinding, and the mandible often has sharp bumps (cusps) which wear down like our teeth but are self-sharpening. Some even have fillings! They can't afford gold ones, but some insects have deposits of zink and manganese, which strengthen the cusps.


----------



## MantidLord (Jul 20, 2009)

Really, I've never had a mantis have a problem with tearing open a mealworm. Although it could be a different species of mantis, obviously. But if a mantis can pierce the skin with its mandibles, you would think it could pierce the exoskeleton of a mealworm, maybe even a beetle. Maybe it's just not hungry. You can't rule out "too hard" unless the mantis picked up the beetle, nibbled on it, and then gave up and dropped. That's all I'm saying.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Jul 20, 2009)

MantidLord said:


> Really, I've never had a mantis have a problem with tearing open a mealworm. Although it could be a different species of mantis, obviously. But if a mantis can pierce the skin with its mandibles, you would think it could pierce the exoskeleton of a mealworm, maybe even a beetle. Maybe it's just not hungry. You can't rule out "too hard" unless the mantis picked up the beetle, nibbled on it, and then gave up and dropped. That's all I'm saying.


I was talking about the adult beetle, Mantidlord, and the mantids that I tried them on were not close to starving. From what I've read of mantis vision, though, I would expect that they would just see a dark, moving line, rather than something that they found edible or inedible. My guess is that when I wasn't looking, they grabbed the beetle and found that it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to bite through the hard, convex elytra. Maybe if they had been starving, it would have been a different matter.


----------



## superfreak (Jul 21, 2009)

yeah, no species ive ever kept has been much of a fan of beetles. ive got a bunch of freshly pupated mealworms atm and so am desperately stuffing my mantids before the adults emerge


----------



## -MK- (Jul 21, 2009)

I fed one of my Chinese a firefly/lightning bug after seeing the "glowing mantis" photos on here, and he dropped it after a nibble because he seemed to be put off by the hard back of it. Later on, though, I guess he got hungry enough to have another go, because the next day all that was left were the shells that covered the wings.


----------

