# She ATE him!! How rude!!



## Psychobunny (Dec 27, 2011)

I had been planing to mate my 2 lineola's for a while. They have their own net cubes next to each other

and I decided to put him in with her when I noticed he was showing interest.

The female had just eated a roach and had laid a infertile ooth a week ago (she has laid 3 so far).

So, I figured it was pretty safe to put him in with her, WRONG!! she didnt see him right away, but when she

did, she literaly attacked him.

I tried my best to seperate them without doing them any harm, but couldnt.

She had him in a death grip and started munching his raptorial arms.

He didnt pay much attention to this however and began mating.

I was watching closely and I believe he did succeed in the mating, even while he was being eaten!

He was still at it even when his head, arms, and half his thorax was missing!! :blink: 

Now I suppose she is fertile, but I am out one male lineola (my only one!!)

Did I do something wrong?

This experience almost makes me not want to try breeding anymore


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## agent A (Dec 27, 2011)

Sometimes they write bad romances

I had a tenodera female eat a male I put in the cage the night before, then later in the day she mated with a different male and he survived

If he connected and she didn't reject the spermetaphore then it is safe to assume she is fertilized


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## Introvertebrate (Dec 27, 2011)

Maybe, next time, put him in while she's still eating the roach.


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## gripen (Dec 27, 2011)

or put the female in the males cage.


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## Psychobunny (Dec 27, 2011)

I was thinking about doing both suggestions, but I didnt listen to the little voice in my head!!

This is all that is left of my male lineola


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## happy1892 (Dec 27, 2011)

This sounds similar to this video.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/22631541


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## meaganelise9 (Dec 27, 2011)

Ha that sucks.. Luckily, they're not built like us (whole brain just in the head), and they can do the deed while losing a considerable amount of body parts.. It's kind of amazing actually. Mazel tov but sorry for your loss.


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 27, 2011)

oh u have plenty left to glue together to make a male, they don't need all them body parts anyways :tt2:


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## Psychobunny (Dec 27, 2011)

LOL!! I still think it's the very hight of rudeness!!

Someone's making love to you, and you eat him!!!

It was surreal to watch him penatrate her and do his thing sans a head and thorax :hang: 

So now, should I expect her NEXT ooth to be fertile, or will it take the second ooth?

Also, how long will a lineola retain the sperm and how many fertile ooth's can be expected from a

single mating?

I am going to miss that guy, he was so friendly and enjoyed riding around the house on my shoulder


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## Psychobunny (Dec 27, 2011)

It's a good thing evolution put the mating and sex ganglia in the abdomen!!

Needless to say, it will be a "closed coffin" funeral :no:


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## jcal (Dec 28, 2011)

At least he went out with a bang.


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## frogparty (Dec 28, 2011)

Rimshot... Lol


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## Chivalry (Dec 30, 2011)

Ugh, I'm afraid of getting attached to males and having this happen. Bad mantis! But you can tell the babies "See this was your daddy's wing... this is NOT how you treat a man..."


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## gripen (Dec 30, 2011)

hahahha


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 30, 2011)

You done good, PsychoB. There are lots of reasons why mating can go wrong, and i doubt that whether or not a female has just had a large meal before mating is a major factor in nature. The female may not be "in the mood" because it was the wrong time of day, she wasn't calling, the humidity wasn't high enough, or half a dozen other reasons that I haven't had time to invent yet.

By all accounts, you should have a fertilized female, and that was yr goal all along. Someone mentioned the female "rejecting" the sperm" which doesn't make much sense when you think about it, though a female can absorb sperm through the spermatothea , if her eggs are already being fertilized, as an additional source of protein. I think that this strange idea is based on the fact that the sperm is passed on to the female in a packet, the spermato, which is roipped open by the female. The empty sac is then discarded and sometmes eaten, giving rise to the idea that the spermatazoa were "rejected'.

As to your questions about whether the next ooth will be fertile )my guess is "yes") and how many fertile ooths she will lay after one fertilization, you are out to be the Forum Expert on both questions. Let us know what happens!


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## agent A (Dec 30, 2011)

PhilinYuma said:


> Someone mentioned the female "rejecting" the sperm" which doesn't make much sense when you think about it, though a female can absorb sperm through the spermatothea , if her eggs are already being fertilized, as an additional source of protein. I think that this strange idea is based on the fact that the sperm is passed on to the female in a packet, the spermato, which is roipped open by the female. The empty sac is then discarded and sometmes eaten, giving rise to the idea that the spermatazoa were "rejected'.


thanx for clearing that up phil, i thought the females rejected the spermetaphore sometimes cause i saw a female creobroter once, minutes after the male disconnected, push a whitish thing out of her abdomen then eat it and i thought she rejected the spermetaphore and all

she ended up mating again with a different male and all her ooths hatched, but i still thought the first time she rejected it, now i know it was just the old sac

thanx  i owe u one!!!


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## angelofdeathzz (Dec 31, 2011)

I've mated quite a few mantis in my day, not that I'm a expert by any means but I find that over feeding your females and cooling them down a few hours before introducing the male(that has been heated up) is the best way to have the males around for another day or 50.

If you can get past the first few hours of them being together your chances go up, a colder WELL fed female is slower and less likely to be startled by the new male, also use more than one male at a time if you can as the males will hang out together in a corner and she should feel out numbered till one of them is brave enough to move in, but by then she should know there in there with her to do a JOB(fingers crossed) and not so much for food.

Of course this will not work every time with out a hitch, but I successfully mated many Idolo's this way and actually had to stop mating them so I wouldn't have to many babies, yep you heard me right, a few hundred babies is one thing but a few thousand is another story all together, lol.

I didn't lose a single male this way out of the 5-6 I used(3-4 at a time), they all lived (males) to old age and expired as the true little Kings they were... They will be missed.  

The main problem with mating is the males mature first, so you need to figure ouy a way to slow them down to let the females catch up or have males from a later hatched ooth to get the job done.


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## Introvertebrate (Jan 1, 2012)

You're saying that the males might die of old age before the females are mature enough to breed?


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## angelofdeathzz (Jan 1, 2012)

Introvertebrate said:


> You're saying that the males might die of old age before the females are mature enough to breed?


Yes sir, that's exactly what I'm saying, all species are a little different but 80-90% of the time the males mature to adult first by weeks or more if something isn't done, like less heat/food or both.


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## Introvertebrate (Jan 2, 2012)

Interesting. Thanks.


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## RevWillie (Jan 2, 2012)

I've only lost 1 male in about 2 dozen matings: I raised 3 Orchids from L2 to adult and ended up with 2 males and a HUGE female. The males matured first and I kept them 5+ degrees cooler and only fed them 1 BB twice a week (and lots of water). The female finally matured about 5 weeks later, I waited until she was 4 weeks mature, and introduced the the male to her cage, behind her. He was close behind her, hanging from the screen lid, looking scared to death although she hadn't noticed him. I watched them for half an hour, nothing much happened, then I got distracted and forgot to check on them for 20 minutes. I searched all over for the male in the well-planted cage, couldn't find him anywhere.

And then I found the wing. No legs, no raptors, no crumbs - just a piece of wing 3/4" long was all that was left of the male. It took me a while to get up the nerve to try again but about a week later the 2nd male successfully bred with her and lived to brag about it.

IMO (with major help from this and another forum  )

- feed the female everything she'll eat

- have more food ready to give her

- put the female in the honeymoon suite first and let her settle

- introduce male behind female, as close as possible; distract the female if she sees him

- I prefer to NOT have them hanging from the lid, have them on top of or amongst branches

- supervise as much as possible


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## Psychobunny (Jan 11, 2012)

What about the "out of cage" method?

Put them out in the open. Put the male a few feet from the female and let

them discover each other slowly.

If the female gets too aggesive, at least the male has a chance of flying away!?


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## lancaster1313 (Jan 11, 2012)

Psychobunny said:


> What about the "out of cage" method?
> 
> Put them out in the open. Put the male a few feet from the female and let
> 
> ...


I have done this almost every time I have allowed my mantids to mate.

I have only had 4 males be eaten, and 3 of them were contained during the process.


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## patrickfraser (Jan 11, 2012)

As Sugarland would say, "Shhhhhh.....it happens" :lol: I don't take it hard when a male gets eaten. I sometimes prefer it. His job is done and it's one less mouth to feed(2 for a day or 2 :lol: ). I figure he's just "taking one for the team". It's also a lot of good nutrition to get those eggs a-pumpin.


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## Psychobunny (Jan 12, 2012)

I dont exactly loose any sleep over it either.

But when it's my only one, I get a bit irate!! &lt;_&lt;


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