# Hi I am new



## breezes127

I recently ( 1 week) took up the interest of praying mantis ( my son fell in love)  , I was wondering if this set up is ok for the S.Carolina mantis seen here :






It's name is Porky.

The measurements roughly are 6 in X 6 in.


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## Rick

Welcome. That isn't an S. Carolina though. Please post some more pics of the mantis so we can get a better idea of the species. The enclosure looks fine though.


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## Andrew

I agree with Rick. Its not an S. Carolina, but most likely a Chinese mantis(Tenodera A. Sinensis). More pics would definately help for a positive ID.

The enclosure looks fine. :wink:

Thanks,

Andrew


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## breezes127

Here I assumed because I live in Ohio it was S.Carolina mantis


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## worldofmantis

nope not an s carolina most likley a chinese mantis. Wow your from ohio? Im in the columbus area about 30 minutes east


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## breezes127

Hope these help


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## breezes127

If those pics were to big here is the photo album url http://photobucket.com/albums/y60/breezes1...aying%20Mantis/


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## Rick

That is a European mantis (mantis religiosa) It's a female too. S. Carolina is smaller. BTW you have to make your photobucket album public for us to see it.


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## breezes127

> nope not an s carolina most likley a chinese mantis. Wow your from ohio? Im in the columbus area about 30 minutes east


Yeah I am from Toledo about 2 hrs or so from Columbus. Small world .


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## breezes127

> That is a European mantis (mantis religiosa) It's a female too. S. Carolina is smaller. BTW you have to make your photobucket album public for us to see it.


There you go I made it public, sorry about that


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## Rick

Yeah without a doubt it's an European mantis.


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## worldofmantis

I think that carolina and chinese mantids have been over come by european mantids in the ohio and states surrounding it. I havent found any other matnis other than european mantids and someone from michigan found them but i havent heard from any in the ohio area that hasent found a mantis other than european mantids


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## breezes127

> That is a European mantis (mantis religiosa) It's a female too. S. Carolina is smaller. BTW you have to make your photobucket album public for us to see it.


Oh and thank you, are they native to Ohio?


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## Rick

Well some of you Ohio people need to catch me a few pairs of em. I have wanted this species for some time. We don't have em around here for some reason.


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## Rick

> That is a European mantis (mantis religiosa) It's a female too. S. Carolina is smaller. BTW you have to make your photobucket album public for us to see it.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh and thank you, are they native to Ohio?
Click to expand...

They are not native to the United States at all. They were brought over here a couple hundered years ago. But yeah they are common to Ohio.


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## breezes127

This is all so interesting for me, which is odd for me because I usually hate bugs but I am slowly changing my mind, Porky (my mantis) is amazing to watch hunt and she is kinda cute too. I have a baby chinese mantis on it's way too.


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## Rick

Don't put your new mantis in with your current one. :wink:


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## breezes127

> Don't put your new mantis in with your current one. :wink:


Nope they will be "neighbors" in seperate homes. The baby is going to be my sons (I'll take care of it).


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## worldofmantis

dont worry rick when my mantis lays its eggs ill give you a peice of the pie

oh and how old is your son?


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## breezes127

> dont worry rick when my mantis lays its eggs ill give you a peice of the pieoh and how old is your son?


My son is only 7, this mantis thing started a week ago, with a mantis that my son lost at my mom's house, long story. Needless to say it is becoming a hobby or something like that.

BTW Rick if I find another mantis, I'll send it to you. :wink:


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## worldofmantis

are you planning on mating your female european mantis?


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## breezes127

> are you planning on mating your female european mantis?


Well I am really a newbie, I wouldn't know were to start and I am afraid they'll eat each other.


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## worldofmantis

Well ehrs how ya do it. When they have both been an adult for a few weeks you load em both up on food. Until there abdomen is really full. Then you take the male out of his cage and set him down on a desk and wait until he is calm and just standing there. Then you st the female down infront of him by a few inches. If they are old enough he will juimp on and hold for dear life. She will probably struggle but thats how it will go. If she starts to grab him simply seperate them wait a few days and start all over.


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## breezes127

> Well ehrs how ya do it. When they have both been an adult for a few weeks you load em both up on food. Until there abdomen is really full. Then you take the male out of his cage and set him down on a desk and wait until he is calm and just standing there. Then you st the female down infront of him by a few inches. If they are old enough he will juimp on and hold for dear life. She will probably struggle but thats how it will go. If she starts to grab him simply seperate them wait a few days and start all over.


But I would have to find 2 adolescent mantis, right? Porky is adult or so I assume? :?


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## Andrew

She's an adult, and chances are she has already mated. If you find a male(males have more segments on the abdomen than females) do what Chris said and it should go fine.

Thanks,

Andrew


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## worldofmantis

Yea you would need to find two adults but i found one rick sold it to me.


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## worldofmantis

> She's an adult, and chances are she has already mated. If you find a male(males have more segments on the abdomen than females) do what Chris said and it should go fine.Thanks,
> 
> Andrew


you absolutley right andrew she has probably already mated (im chris)


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## breezes127

Well if I come across another,which is very possible it seems they are every where this year, I will give a whirl. I can't mate 2 diff species of mantids,right?


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## breezes127

> She's an adult, and chances are she has already mated. If you find a male(males have more segments on the abdomen than females) do what Chris said and it should go fine.Thanks,
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 
> 
> you absolutley right andrew she has probably already mated
Click to expand...

Could she be preggers now? :shock: :?:


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## worldofmantis

no they have to be the same species. You will know because european mantids normally have two white dots on thire fore arms. And chinese mantids are incredibly large and have green and brown wings. Carolina mantids are smaller than european mantids. Males will be smaller than females but will have 8 segments instead of 6 on there abdomenand all the characteristics as females ill post a pic in a bit


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## worldofmantis

she could be pregnant ill show ya some pics


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## breezes127

> she could be pregnant ill show ya some pics


Wow is this breeding season?


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## worldofmantis

heres a link to some pics http://bugsincyberspace.com/mantids/mantis_religiosa.html

Mantids breed when they become adults. They dont have wings until then. They molt their skin and become bigger. The size of a new born is the size of a misquito ( just a little bigger) I think a better comparison is a baby grass hopper. heres a pic of a baby one http://bugsincyberspace.com/mantids/tenode...a_sinensis.html

It also has a pic of an ootheca (egg case) although the second link is chinese mantids but they are around that size


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## breezes127

> heres a link to some pics http://bugsincyberspace.com/mantids/mantis_religiosa.htmlMantids breed when they become adults. They dont have wings until then. They molt their skin and become bigger. The size of a new born is the size of a misquito ( just a little bigger) I think a better comparison is a baby grass hopper. heres a pic of a baby one http://bugsincyberspace.com/mantids/tenode...a_sinensis.html
> 
> It also has a pic of an ootheca (egg case) although the second link is chinese mantids but they are around that size


How long is there "pregnancy"? a month? If Porky has babies , do I seperate them from her right away?


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## worldofmantis

when she becomes pregnant she will lay eggs. EeVn if there not furtilized. the eggs look like the link i just posted. Then it will take 2-4 weeks for them to ahtch. Then boom lots of babys. Feed them fruit flys and you can keep them together until they molt twice then seperate them. You probably will see some canabolism but uless you go buy 100 little cages you cant seperate them. I seperate them when they are born cause i love the lil buggas so my advice is to buy 300 lil styrafoam cups rubber bands netting or food wrap with holes poked in it a sponge and a mister/ spray bottel that ahs been cleaned and has never had chemicals in it. raising them from lil babys can be expensive and hard


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## breezes127

> when she becomes pregnant she will lay eggs. EeVn if there not furtilized. the eggs look like the link i just posted. Then it will take 2-4 weeks for them to ahtch. Then boom lots of babys. Feed them fruit flys and you can keep them together until they molt twice then seperate them. You probably will see some canabolism but uless you go buy 100 little cages you cant seperate them. I seperate them when they are born cause i love the lil buggas so my advice is to buy 300 lil styrafoam cups rubber bands netting or food wrap with holes poked in it a sponge and a mister/ spray bottel that ahs been cleaned and has never had chemicals in it. raising them from lil babys can be expensive and hard


Well hopefully she is not preggers, if she is I will be on here selling some baby european mantis. Do they eat more if they are preggers( I know females eat more in general)? because she is ceratinly a little piggy (hence the name porky).


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## worldofmantis

lol by the way i like the name i named mine martina. I Think they eat alot mroe to support the babys


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## Andrew

Like Chris said, mantids get wings when they molt into adult. After about 2 weeks from their last molt, they are ready to mate. In the wild, mantids hatch in the spring and die in the winter. In captivity, however, females can live much longer.

Porky will probably begin laying oothecae soon. M. Religiosa(European mantis) oothecae(mantis egg sack) need a cooling period before they hatch, and it normally takes about a month for them to hatch after the cooling period. So you could keep the ooths in the fridge until spring, hatch them, and release/sell any that you dont want if you prefer to do it that way. Female mantids will lay an ootheca every couple of weeks until they die.

Im sure you could find plenty of hatching techniques by looking at some old posts. You can keep the oothecae the same way you would a chinese mantis ootheca(tenodera sinensis).

Thanks,

Andrew


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## worldofmantis

I diddnt know that they NEED a freezing period. How short is the shortest i can make the freezing period?


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## breezes127

Well I will keep you guys updated if she gives birth, Rick you may have a baby or 2 for free since you would like some. BTW Porky is a mad crazy eater, I think she would eat and eat and eat if I allowed her to but I stopped her after 4 pinhead crickets, 2 meal worms and 2 nice size adult crickets ( I keep some fat crickets around for my white's tree frog). Porky got her name while i was drving her home, she had a pinhead cricket in each "arm" and it gave me a giggle to see her like that and still hunting the other loose cricket in her cage.


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## Rick

That mantis can catch pinhead crickets? I would feed her two medium crickets or one large one every other day. Or you can feed her a couple small ones daily. She will need more food since she is growing eggs inside of her. She will lay eggs whether she was mated or not. If she wasn't mated they just won't hatch.


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## breezes127

Well she ate all the pinhead crickets I had in the container I brought her home in. I might as well explain how this all started, last week my son spent a couple days at my mom’s and he came across a very friendly mantis whom he fell in love with, he took the mantis to the market with him and everything, that night he put back in the potted plant he found it in and it was still there the next morning. So my mom called me to tell about this and I went out and bought some pin head crickets (my mom described it as a baby) and container for it. Well later that day my mom had him put in the plant again to give it excerise and air and when he went back to get it, it was gone. I got a call at my work from my mom with my son crying in the background, she had me go on the internet and see if I could get him a new one, so I ordered a Chinese mantis nypmh. I kept the container and crickets at work because I was having it sent here and it still hasn’t arrived. So yesterday a guy at my work found Porky or I should say she found him and they gave her to me, so I put her in the container and she finished off the crickets that were still alive and that is why she ate pinhead crickets yesterday.


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## Rick

Pinhead crickets are very very tiny so that is why I was wondering how an adult mantis could even catch them.


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## breezes127

> Pinhead crickets are very very tiny so that is why I was wondering how an adult mantis could even catch them.


Well these were not as tiny as normal but not medium sizze either, they had a week to grow a little.


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