# Sensei gets his fill



## Tomato (Aug 10, 2010)

Here are some more shots of Sensei my Mantidfly. Thought I'd start a new thread for it

Sensei seems to do fine on about one meal a day. Sometimes he'll eat a little more than that if I'm offering, but I've gotten into the routine of catching him one of whatever I find on the backdoor window in the evening (various moths, long-legged flies, leafhoppers, just about anything will do. I haven't seen him crack open a beetle shell yet though). Sometimes I see large (~1cm or more) leafhoppers on the backdoor window (_Gyponana_ spp.). It's a lovely creature, brilliant green with eyes such a bright vermillion they almost glow (doesn't really show in the pictures though). I usually don't bother with them because I assume that they are too big/powerful for Sensei to wrestle, but this evening I took one, figured I'd let Sensei have at it.

Well, the Mantidfly was pretty hungry, it turns out. It also turns out that I underestimated his raptorial forelegs, because it didn't take long before he was face-deep in green bugbutt. Yep, he started from the butt. I'm not sure why, because he normally bites the head off first (presumably to stop the prey from struggling). He really dug into this _Gyponana_ and ate about half of it. Next thing I know, _Gyponana_ is dragging itself by its remaining legs. The thing was still alive! Wow. Sensei is a really @$$face. It's not the first time I've seen him commit acts of cruelty on his prey. At least his torture of this _Gyponana_ was secondary to eating it. I have seen him catch a fly, put it in a headlock, bend its body back and forth, probably hijacking the krap out of its nervous system, and let it go, quivering and disoriented, to die slowly of some malfunction or another. Anyway, that's how the cookie crumbles when you're a bug, I guess. I'm just thankful Sensei is as small as he is  

Ok, enough yapping. Pictures!

Digging in:







Tearing at the meat. That's some prime cut right there:






So delicious I am going to stick my now fat butt in the air with excitement while batting my antennae ever faster!






Clearly, Sensei does not eat to live, he lives to eat:






Shockingly, _Gyponana_ is not only still alive, but is trying to escape. It takes cover on the cedar foliage. If it doesn't die (I figure, things usually do die sooner or later when they get eaten in half), Sensei will most likely finish it later:






BTW, the cedar foliage was something I threw in last weekend when changing his substrate. I noticed that Sensei seems to like flattish surfaces. He avoids the twigs but hangs out on the glass or the screen (in the lid of the jar). He still prefers the screen, but I have found him on the underside of that cedar twig a few times now.

-Tomato


----------



## Jesskb (Aug 10, 2010)

awesome! Nice pics, this little guy is so intriguing!


----------



## hibiscusmile (Aug 11, 2010)

you should of kept going with old thread, not to late to transfer it, nice to see how big a thread gets, and u got one happy fly, how long has it been now that u have it? see if the old thread was here, I could just scroll and count for me self :tt2:


----------



## ismart (Aug 11, 2010)

Great shots!  Have you been able to determine if Sensei is a male, or female? I would guess female? I cant remember if you had alredy mentioned this in the last thread? I have set up a light trap in my yard, in hopes of catching one.


----------



## Tomato (Aug 11, 2010)

Jesskb- thanks!

hibiscusmile- it's been almost a month and a half and he's still alive so I must be doing something right. On the other hand, my mother thought she was the perfect parent when my sister was born. Then I came along....heh.

ismart- no idea. I call him a "he" out of the vague assumption that, because he kinda looks like a mantid, maybe the abdominal segment rule applies--and he has more than 6 of them. I will try to get as good a shot as I can of his butt/genitals and maybe some experts here can throw in an opinion.

-Tomato


----------



## Precarious (Aug 11, 2010)

Cool! I never saw one of those before!

Now I want one...


----------



## Ghostie (Aug 12, 2010)

Dig the adventures of Sensei stories. Keep them coming.

That's a crazy little bug!


----------



## katz640 (Aug 12, 2010)

I've never seen a Mantidfly before either. That's really awesome... now I've got to get me one of those.


----------



## Mars1962 (Aug 13, 2010)

Oh I wish I'd seen this thread a week ago (but I just joined.) I'm in steamy August Chicago and haven't found any bugs around my building to feed my mantis except houseflies. But the other night I picked one of these odd flies off the window and fed it to my Rock. It was a Mantis Fly. Now I feel terrible! Had pretty wings and was so cool looking.


----------

