# Brand new to mantids!



## Zeede (Nov 4, 2010)

I live in a suburb outside Los Angeles, and this past weekend we found a praying mantis in the backyard! I promptly brought it inside and then got a little plastic enclosure to put it in.

It is a female, and in her adult stage, as she definitely has wings. The plus side is I don't have to go buy a larger enclosure (the 3x her length from top to bottom rule), but that also means she probably won't last more than a couple of months. I think she's a California mantis, as she is green and about 3" long.

She's awesome, such a cool bug!

As she has just a few months left, I want to make her comfortable, so I have two questions:

1) I have tried to moths outside, but to no avail, so for now her diet is going to be PetSmart crickets. I heard mealworms aren't as good, or that you have to dangle them in front of them, but at any rate, I don't have the time to devote to raising feeder bugs.

How many crickets per feeding, and how many feedings per week?

2) Water. It's very dry in SoCal, so do I really need to mist the enclosure every other day?

Thanks in advance,

Cameron


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 4, 2010)

Hey welcome and she still will need something a little bigger to live in, or how bout a house plant by a window would be fine, she will probably stay there if you feed her there. she needs water a spraying every day or let her drink off your finger. You can offer her all her meals, with tweezers, she is not eating cause she is either not happy with the confinment or getting ready to lay an ooth. Let mus know what u decide. :tt2:


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## Pet Duck Boy (Nov 4, 2010)

Make sure you keep those crickets clean and well fed, petsmart cricks are quite nasty and full of bacteria.


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## Seattle79 (Nov 4, 2010)

Welcome to the Forum. Keep one cricket in the encloser at a time with her, they tend to eat other insects when hungry. Put some food in the encloser for the cricket.


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## LauraMG (Nov 4, 2010)

Welcome welcome!


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## Zeede (Nov 4, 2010)

She's eating quite voraciously. I put two crickets in on Sunday when we found her, and she ate them both up rapidly. I then gave her three more the next day, and she didn't eat the last one until last night, so, lesson learned about putting in too many at once.

I've noticed the plastic sides don't give her any grip. I watched her stalk the last two crickets, and she would creep closer, with her hind legs securely anchored from the plastic "mesh" top, but with the rest of her legs constantly scrabbling to find purchase on the plastic walls. It was kind of sad, actually.

Again, how often should I feed her? Twice a week? Every other day?

Cameron


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## GreenOasis (Nov 4, 2010)

Minimum would probably be a couple of crix every other day, but, I would offer one good-sized one a day. The occasional swatted fly on the end of tweezers would probably make her pretty happy too! Definitely keep a piece of dog food or breakfast cereal or something in there for the crix, though or they WILL try to eat your mantis! (And yes, mist the cage, just a little, each evening.)

OH, and WELCOME! PICS, PICS!?  

-Carey Kurtz-


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## Zeede (Nov 4, 2010)

I will try and snap some pics tonight, when I clean her poop out.

I was leaving a small leaf of cabbage in for the cricket, but I wasn't sure if it really ate any of it or not. If it's cereal it wants though, I've got lots of that around.

No dry dog food, sadly, as we gave away our dog last year.

I've tried to find some flying insects, but it has been cold (for California), so there tend to be very few flying bugs out in the open this time of year.

Cameron


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## Jesskb (Nov 4, 2010)

Welcome to the forum!


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## angelofdeathzz (Nov 7, 2010)

Welcome


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 7, 2010)

I like to glue fake leaves and some real twigs in their houses and that is great for them to hang onto when moving around their home. Females need to eat each day and some water too.


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## Zeede (Nov 7, 2010)

Thanks for all the welcomes!  

I have been misting her enclosure daily. Should I leave a tiny water bowl or should the moisture from crickets and daily misting be enough?

Cameron


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## MrPitseleh (Nov 7, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Thanks for all the welcomes!
> 
> I have been misting her enclosure daily. Should I leave a tiny water bowl or should the moisture from crickets and daily misting be enough?
> 
> Cameron


I put a tiny bowl of water in with my mantids and half of it is filled with little pebbles then I mist once a day right before I go to bed. I'm not sure if I really need to put it in there but I like to anyway I guess it depends on how ventilated the Enclosure is.


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## LauraMG (Nov 7, 2010)

Mantids won't drink from standing water. In fact, in my experience, it can be dangerous for them. I've lost some little nymphs in large water droplets before...more than once.... :blush: It's best to have some substrate, whether that's a paper towel or something more like moss or coconut fiber, and mist once daily.


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## MrPitseleh (Nov 8, 2010)

Laura G said:


> Mantids won't drink from standing water. In fact, in my experience, it can be dangerous for them. I've lost some little nymphs in large water droplets before...more than once.... :blush: It's best to have some substrate, whether that's a paper towel or something more like moss or coconut fiber, and mist once daily.


The bowls I put in there are for helping with humidity not for drinking and I keep it half filled with pebbles so it's not big Enough for grown mantids to drown in, unless they were trying to. :lol: I'm glad you posted that about the nymphs, I'll have to change stuff around when I get some.


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## LauraMG (Nov 9, 2010)

MrPitseleh said:


> The bowls I put in there are for helping with humidity not for drinking and I keep it half filled with pebbles so it's not big Enough for grown mantids to drown in, unless they were trying to. :lol: I'm glad you posted that about the nymphs, I'll have to change stuff around when I get some.


Substrate is, in my experience, an easier way to hold humidity. I'm glad to share though, because it was by bad experience that I learned!


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## Zeede (Nov 18, 2010)

An update! She has laid an ooth! It was really interesting watching her pump it out (and neat to see the striped pattern it has).

Now I've read a lot about ooth care, moisture and humidity and all that, but it's quite dry in Southern California naturally. It is more dry inside, since the heater runs occasionally, but I gather that the eggs will likely hatch pretty well on their own so long as I give the enclosure a spray now and again.

Any idea how soon it will be before the eggs hatch?

Cameron


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## GreenOasis (Nov 18, 2010)

Couple months, at least.

You should take a pic of her &amp; her ooth...that would be the best way to identify the species and get a better idea for ooth care. She may be a Stagmomantis limbata or an Iris oratoria...given your location.


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## Zeede (Nov 18, 2010)

Thanks, I will try and take a pic, but my cell phone's camera is woefully inadequate. My wife is visiting her parents, else I'd have access to a proper camera.

Cameron


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 19, 2010)

A belated welcome from Yuma, AZ! How nice of you to want to give your female (not the one visiting her mother) a pleasant last few months!

Again, you got lots of good advice. Let me summarize:

Feeding. I cricket a day is good. a cricket every other day is good. Adding flies or other insects is good. Or not. Misting will increase the humidity in the cage for a few hours at the most. How long? It's easy to tell. Spray a little on the inside of the pot. When that has evaporated, the internal relative humidity is about the same as the ambient RH. Spraying the inside of the pot makes the caretaker feel good and doesn't do the mantis any harm, unless you blast the mantis with cold spray, as some folks do.

In other words, mantids are pretty tolerant of what we do to them. When you found your female, she was, like most Ca mantids at this time of year, starving. Your feeding her so well was the direct cause of her laying the ooth. Good job!

Since your one mantis is a good sized adult, it is unlikely that the crix will harm her, though I do recommend no more than one in the pot at a time. But keeping mantids is addictive and I wouldn't be surprised if you decided to get "just a couple more". If so it is a good idea to start raising your crix properly, and that includes feeding them animal protein in the form of dog or cat food. You can buy it in CA even if you don't have a cat or dog (don't ask, don't tell).

Good luck!


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## Zeede (Nov 19, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> A belated welcome from Yuma, AZ! How nice of you to want to give your female (not the one visiting her mother) a pleasant last few months!
> 
> Again, you got lots of good advice. Let me summarize:
> 
> ...


Yes, I will be sad when she passes.

Definitely if I get into raising mantids as a serious hobby I will need a more varied and less suspect food supply. What I did with the last batch of crickets was put them in a glass jar and drop in slices of apples. They ate those and survived about four days (at which point the last one was fed to my praying mantis). I saw that PetSmart sells cricket food, which is pretty silly, IMO.

Crickets eat dog food? That's easy enough to buy. You know, come to think of it, I don't know what crickets eat in the wild.

Cameron


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 19, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Yes, I will be sad when she passes.
> 
> *Definitely if I get into raising mantids as a serious hobby I will need a more varied and less suspect food supply. * What I did with the last batch of crickets was put them in a glass jar and drop in slices of apples. They ate those and survived about four days (at which point the last one was fed to my praying mantis). I saw that PetSmart sells cricket food, which is pretty silly, IMO.
> 
> ...


Oh boy, you're doomed already!






Crickets and cockroaches are omnivores. Some of us feed our crix animal protein -- dog or cat food -- in the hope that the crix will not be so eager to eat our mantids. By feeding no more than one cricket at a time, though, or because the Great Mantis Goddess (Blessed be Her Name) is watching over us, I have never had a cricket kill a mantis, even when they were molting. I've noticed, though, that crix will molt about once a week whatever you feed them.


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## dgerndt (Nov 19, 2010)

Welcome!

Make sure you put that ooth in a container with a lid. If that hatches before you're ready, you'll have babies all over your room!


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## Zeede (Nov 19, 2010)

Here's a link to what I have her in currently:

Click here

She's in the purple one, the second smallest. As she had wings when I found her, I knew she would not be molting again.

The ooth was laid attached to the "roof" of the enclosure. Are the slats on the lid small enough to keep nymphs inside?

Cameron


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 19, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Here's a link to what I have her in currently:
> 
> Click here
> 
> ...


Alas, no!



Some folks go to a lot of trouble to "nymph/ff proof" critter keepers, but they are just not designed for mantids. You need something taller than it is wide, to facilitate molting. 32oz deli cups with a cloth lid work very well. Besides, when you become a "serious hobbyist" you'll find fifty deli cups a lot cheaper than 50 critter keepers, though by that time you'll be checking out 12" net cubes.....


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 19, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Here's a link to what I have her in currently:
> 
> Click here
> 
> ...


Alas, no!



Some folks go to a lot of trouble to "nymph/ff proof" critter keepers, but they are just not designed for mantids. You need something taller than it is wide, to facilitate molting. 32oz deli cups with a cloth lid work very well. Besides, when you become a "serious hobbyist" you'll find fifty deli cups a lot cheaper than 50 critter keepers, though by that time you'll be checking out 12" net cubes.....


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## dgerndt (Nov 19, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Here's a link to what I have her in currently:
> 
> Click here
> 
> ...


Ooo, no. You're going to want to remove the ootheca. Crickets will eat it, and the mother might eat the nymphs if she's still around when it hatches. You can go to your local grocery store and get deli cups for free, usually. Use a cloth lid (I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and got some nice tightly-woven mesh) to keep the nymphs and fruitflies in.


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## Zeede (Nov 19, 2010)

I only put one cricket in at a time, and watch them until they're eaten, so the risk to the ooth is minimal. If they manage to climb up onto the lid, they're dead meat anyways, as that's where mom is, and she'll put an end to any cricket shenanigans right quick.

Hmm, well what I might do then, is move mom to another enclosure (if she's even alive in 2-3 months) and just put the fabric over the top of the critter keeper (after removing the plastic slotted top). The height of the critter keeper is more than high enough for the nympths when they first come out.

I really don't want to move the ooth, as it is has oozed into the slots of the lid, and if I try and pull it off, I could easily damage it.

Of course, all this discussion is assuming my female mated at some point before I found her on Halloween.

Cameron


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## dgerndt (Nov 20, 2010)

Zeede said:


> I only put one cricket in at a time, and watch them until they're eaten, so the risk to the ooth is minimal. If they manage to climb up onto the lid, they're dead meat anyways, as that's where mom is, and she'll put an end to any cricket shenanigans right quick.
> 
> Hmm, well what I might do then, is move mom to another enclosure (if she's even alive in 2-3 months) and just put the fabric over the top of the critter keeper (after removing the plastic slotted top). The height of the critter keeper is more than high enough for the nympths when they first come out.
> 
> ...


Well, you can easily take the ooth off the lid by gently misting it with dechlorinated water to moisten the foam and then it should wiggle right off. It should be better to remove the ooth anyway, because you'll want to arrange the ooth in the correct position to aid in the nymphs' hatching.


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## sporeworld (Nov 20, 2010)

This might belong in a different thread, but on the topic of proper orientation, I've noticed that some ooths (Gongys/Ghosts) this is a must. But some others (Chinese/Idols) is really hard (or impossible) to find a seam to get them positioned properly. Is it possible that with those bigger, foamier ones that orientation isn't necessary...?


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 21, 2010)

I suspect that the idea of "correct" orientation of ooths is right up there with spraying. The Stagmomantis limbata in my area tend to lay their "zippered" ooths either perpendicular to the ground or parallel to it. I can see two two on a wall that are ten feet above the ground. Will the nymphs be concussed when they fall after hatching? Will the nymphs from an "upside down" ooth fail to detach from their exuviae? If you don't know why you try to orient ooths when mounting them, why do you do it? Because other folks do? If other folks jumped off a cliff.....


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## sporeworld (Nov 21, 2010)

HA! I hate cliffs! Otherwise, yeah - I'd jump! As long as all the cool kids are doing it.... (jk)

I know from experience that if I don't pin Gongy Ooths right, they come out all mangled. But if aimed down, all the nymphs climb back up the silk(?) and scurry off (they don't fall unless knocked down). But Gongy ooth LOOK like they have an up and down. Idols don't. At least not that I can tell.

Anyone seen any pics or videos of nymphs hatching...?


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 21, 2010)

Sporeworld said:


> HA! I hate cliffs! Otherwise, yeah - I'd jump! As long as all the cool kids are doing it.... (jk)
> 
> I know from experience that if I don't pin Gongy Ooths right, they come out all mangled. But if aimed down, all the nymphs climb back up the silk(?) and scurry off (they don't fall unless knocked down). But Gongy ooth LOOK like they have an up and down. Idols don't. At least not that I can tell.
> 
> Anyone seen any pics or videos of nymphs hatching...?


A year or so ago, I sent a ghost ooth to a member (Jacksun) in Canada, and he ran a video stream on it so that we actually got to see the nymphs hatch. I was very relieved that the ooth was not a dud! Unfortunately, I can't find it on Search. Can an admin person help with that? Come to think of it., once the camera was taken down, the video was probably lost. I'm sure that there must be some on YouTube though, and there are plenty of pix by Yen and others.


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## sporeworld (Nov 21, 2010)

Yeah - Ghosts are easy - they have that little zipper down the middle. I did find pics of Idol hatchings on Yens page, and it looked like they were all coming out of a common "crack". I'm guessing maybe they MADE the crack...?


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## Zeede (Nov 21, 2010)

Is it wrong to assume that "mom" laid the ooth in the proper orientation?

I took a pic. The lid was flipped upside down so I could get both of them in the picture. It's blurry, but hopefully y'all can at least ID mom's specific species.






Cameron


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## dgerndt (Nov 22, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Is it wrong to assume that "mom" laid the ooth in the proper orientation?
> 
> I took a pic. The lid was flipped upside down so I could get both of them in the picture. It's blurry, but hopefully y'all can at least ID mom's specific species.
> 
> Cameron


Well sometimes the mother can't find a stick or anything in the right position so she can't lay her eggs correctly. But it should be okay if the ooth isn't disturbed, I would assume. It's more important to find the right way when you order an ooth because it was detached from the original position.


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## sporeworld (Nov 22, 2010)

Yeah - that looks right.


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## LauraMG (Nov 23, 2010)

Congrats! Most ooths hatch in 4-6 weeks. Check out this thread for some tips on caring for it, if you haven't already. http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9597


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## Zeede (Dec 20, 2010)

Update:

She has recently laid her third ooth. Does this mean she is fertile?

I read that even unfertilized females will lay an ooth, but what about three?

Cameron

Edit: Based on pictures, my mantis should be a Stagmomantis California. Not a huge shocker, given that I live in California.

It seems that the critical thing with ooths is the humidity. I spray every couple of days (the critter keeper is very ventilated, so I don't think much humidity is retained) mainly so she can lick water to stay hydrated, but I've noticed the first two ooths are a different shade of color compared to the brand new one. Is it common for them to slightly change color as they "dry"?


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## dgerndt (Dec 20, 2010)

She probably is fertile because you caught her in the wild. But I have an unmated Egyptian who laid her third ooth just a few days ago. So it's anyone's guess, really.

As for the ooth, it's supposed to be lighter when it's first laid. They get darker and harden as they dry up.


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## Zeede (Dec 20, 2010)

Deby said:


> As for the ooth, it's supposed to be lighter when it's first laid. They get darker and harden as they dry up.


Ah, thanks very much! I'm glad to hear that the color shift is normal.

Cameron


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## dgerndt (Dec 21, 2010)

Zeede said:


> Ah, thanks very much! I'm glad to hear that the color shift is normal.
> 
> Cameron


You're welcome.  I'm glad your mantis is doing so well.


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## Zeede (Feb 8, 2011)

Yay, one of the ooths hatched!

I hadn't fed her in a couple of days so I got two crickets and added them to her enclosure. I noticed she wasn't going after them, and THEN noticed she was starting to lay her sixth ooth (oops, sorry mom!).

She finished laying the ooth and I lured the crickets to where she was hanging from a low branch with a piece of cheese, and she immediately snagged one of them.

As it was getting late, I wanted to feed her the other cricket (I've gotten handy at catching them with chopsticks and presenting them to her) and THEN I noticed some nymphs!

I quickly put them into paper cups w/ a mesh secured (hopefully) over the tops. I noticed mom AND the remaining cricket looked interested in eating them, so I don't know if there were any others besides the three I found.

First thing tomorrow I'm getting some wingless fruit flies!

Cameron


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## dgerndt (Feb 8, 2011)

Congratulations! You're a mom now! You should put the remaining ooths in seperate containers so mommy mantis/crickets don't eat any more nymphs.


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## hibiscusmile (Feb 8, 2011)

Start a new post under " Breeding and Nymph Care


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