# It seems like all the lovely species of mantis



## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

It seems all the more lovely species of mantis are always being sold from places like europe and over seas and you hardly see any in the United States and such species as The Devil Flower Mantis and many others as it is sad that not alot of people in the U.S are either selling them or selling them at a higher price then their worth!


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## wero626 (Sep 20, 2009)

I totally agree with you all the super exotic mantids are always being sold in UK or something like that makes me sad...And if they are here there like 250$ bucks for one ooth or something hahaha ive wanted the idolomantis for awhile.But i refuse to spend over 100$ for and ooth for me that seems ridiculous when i can catch them outside i rather just travel to the states and look for them myself i wish more exotic species would come around more often i also would like to get a devil flower mantis but everybody seems to be sold out darn it let me know if you find some massa man?


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

yeah $100 or higher price for one ooth that could be a dud is not worth the price if you ask me and maybe it is for those who dont see money as a problem or can afford to spend it!

The only way I can see if it was worth that much or more if it was one of those super hard to find ooths or nymphs like the Parymenopus Davisoni or something like that!


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## wero626 (Sep 20, 2009)

massaman said:


> yeah $100 or higher price for one ooth that could be a dud is not worth the price if you ask me and maybe it is for those who dont see money as a problem or can afford to spend it!The only way I can see if it was worth that much or more if it was one of those super hard to find ooths or nymphs like the Parymenopus Davisoni or something like that!


Yeah seriously i thnk sometimes people think of them selves and not other people..Well the way i see it is people that are trying to hustle and thats cool but be reasonable its just a hobby not a bussiness you know?....I cant see how one seems to try and sell a ooth for 100$ or more when a mantid lays amounts of ooths thats just trying to scam people like [villoussa] or w/e his name was but his werent even real WOW.Im here for the fun and excitment of rearing mantids thats why i like this site bc i learn so much from all you guys haha..


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## Rick (Sep 20, 2009)

Supply and demand. I think most of the prices are fair for the rare ooths. Am a paying 30+ for one nymph? No. If you don't like it you don't have to buy them. Last time I checked there were plenty of mantids for sale on this board in the US.


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## [email protected] (Sep 20, 2009)

Rick said:


> Supply and demand. I think most of the prices are fair for the rare ooths. Am a paying 30+ for one nymph? No. If you don't like it you don't have to buy them. Last time I checked there were plenty of mantids for sale on this board in the US.


+1 I think everyone just wants the rarest mantis. I think one of that all time coolest mantis are those texan unicorns.


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## agent A (Sep 20, 2009)

I don't get why people charge high prices for an insect. If I were selling mantids, I'd only charge like 20 dollars for Idolomantis!


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

true 100 dollars could get you so many other things but to waste it all on just 1 insect or maybe 2 that could die before reaching you is just kind of ridiculous


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## Emile.Wilson (Sep 20, 2009)

agent A said:


> I don't get why people charge high prices for an insect. If I were selling mantids, I'd only charge like 20 dollars for Idolomantis!


Well, prices are high due to the species being rare, if you ever played pokemon or an other trading card game, you would have known this already.


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## Cosmic (Sep 20, 2009)

How I see it is you have had the "rarer" species but nobody has continued or failed with the culture of them (that I've heard of on the forum), what happened to the many hundreds of _Idolomantis_ that Yen bred, that goes for alot of his other species he sends them out and thats the last you hear of them, has any actually managed to get a 1st, 2nd, 3rd gen.

We've got 5 or 6 breeders over here who try and keep the rarer species going, in Germany they are even better with it.

It's not all bad for you tho, wish I could step outside and go collecting wild mantids, and many of your species are considered rare over here.


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## bassist (Sep 20, 2009)

Good comment/question Cosmic on this forum and on the rest of the net I cannot find anything on what happened to the _Idolomantis _ and other species in the US that Yen raised. On the subject of prices and all that jazz the problem is people are trying to make a business out of something that just can't over here due to little interest, yeah there are people here that like to keep these insects but does that mean charge $30+ for one young larvae? Problem is not enough people are breeding these species because as seen people leave the hobby or drop a species then the rest fail with them then they're gone in the US so someone has to import them all over again.


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## d17oug18 (Sep 20, 2009)

Me personally, im trying to make mantises affordable again, i agree with massaman. Yeah there rare yeah supply and demand, but again, your selling to(sometimes) children and times are tough, Id put higher prices on rarer species only if there hard to rear to keep newbies from purchasing. Other than that i will wait till a species price goes down THEN get it, screw high prices mantises lol.


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

Wish more people could make mantises affordable and dont see too many kids wanting to spend 50+dollars on the fancy mantis with all the bells and wistles


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## Katnapper (Sep 20, 2009)

Cosmicbug said:


> How I see it is you have had the "rarer" species but nobody has continued or failed with the culture of them (that I've heard of on the forum), what happened to the many hundreds of _Idolomantis_ that Yen bred, that goes for alot of his other species he sends them out and thats the last you hear of them, has any actually managed to get a 1st, 2nd, 3rd gen.We've got 5 or 6 breeders over here who try and keep the rarer species going, in Germany they are even better with it.
> 
> It's not all bad for you tho, wish I could step outside and go collecting wild mantids, and many of your species are considered rare over here.


+1


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

Actually had a first generation of creobroter gemmatus from yen a while back and working on my first with the creobroter nebulosa that he sent me and got one gemmatus that prob is first generation left and she is producing ooths and have a male as well!Other then that working on first generations of giant asians that are mostly first and few second instars and seventeen first instar miomantis and like 1 acromantis female sub adult and seeking a male for her and got a chinese female that has not laid a ooth yet and hoping she does.Also keeping 2 miomantis females and a male and they are in ooth production mode and 2 europeans and got 1 ooth from one of them so far!


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## Morpheus uk (Sep 20, 2009)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We have something better than amaricans :lol: 

Im only interested in the more unusual species of mantis, i would only try the bog standard form of mantis if it had something wierd about it, like a double shield or massive forearms for example, saying that i do have a Sphrodomantis species but i was just seeing what the fuss is all about  

As for the best exotic invertebrates its the rest of Europe i think, like Germany and France that have the best bugs  

But as a plus...

Us brits can keep phasmids


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## 3.1415926 (Sep 20, 2009)

Of course Britan has it better than the US. The polititians are marginally less corupt. PETA and HSUS Puppy killers animal rights activist's HQ are not located there. (PETA has killed euthanized over 90% of the pets they take in and most of them are perfectally healthy). You hopefully dont get disliked for being an atheist (Less than 39% of americans belive in evolution). Neo Facism is banned there ...

Long story short, Britan is not as messed up.


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## Matticus (Sep 20, 2009)

10dor1fro32 said:


> Of course Britan has it better than the US. The polititians are marginally less corupt. PETA and HSUS Puppy killers animal rights activist's HQ are not located there. (PETA has killed euthanized over 90% of the pets they take in and most of them are perfectally healthy). You hopefully dont get disliked for being an atheist (Less than 39% of americans belive in evolution). Neo Facism is banned there ...Long story short, Britan is not as messed up.


This, my friend, is what we call "threadcrapping".


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 20, 2009)

I guess I can add my two cents! As some had said " supply and demand" set a lot of prices. Before any Orchids were available here this year, not one of you would believe the price I paid for ooths! That being said, every ooth a person buys does not hatch, so lets just say I buy an ooth for 50.00 and I got 3 of them, only one hatches, so it actually cost 150.00. Now lets say it had 10 nymphs hatch and only 7 made it thru the first couple molts, none of those can be sold, must all be kept for breeders. So after lets say 6 months they are adult and are almost ready to breed. Three are female and the other 4 are males, and all are put with males and only 2 mate, and all males are ate. Now out of the two left, you paid 150.00 plus room and board for them for 6 months. Now remember, none were sold, so out of the two females left one is egg bound and the other lays an ooth, but is deformed, so u wait and she lays another that is good, now u have to wait 6 weeks min to have it hatch, in 6 weeks it hatches and u have 50 nymphs. You must keep at least a dozen or a dozen and a half to breed again, and the others can be sold to recoup some of your itinial outlay of cash, which by now is going on 8 plus months, say you have 35 left to sell, 4 are ate, 5 die in first molt and now u r down to 26. Hopefully all will continue to be ok and u can sell them and hope they do alright in shipping, at this time, u have spent at least 9 months ( and for some species maybe less time, maybe more time) with your cash out on the street with no return or even a promise of a return. So if that is the case and during this time you have spent money on keeping them warm, feeding and containers for them, lets just say with the time u put into them, when all is said and done after lets say 11 months to a year, because remember the ooth u brought had to hatch to so give it the 4 weeks after shipping to you, u r lucky to make 2.00 on a nymph if u are able and have the 26 left to sell. Remember the female who was egg bound, could of been both of them, as in my first case with my first Orchids from Yen 3 years ago, two died before laying and the third was egg bound, and I never got one ooth to work with.

That is just an example to show you why some prices are what they are. Also for people like me and a few others on here, get a species and do their best to keep it alive so that it is always available. I have many species and when the chat spot was open we talked about how none of them were ever sold. I have probably 10 species I keep alive that no one ever buys. They are for sale, but no one wants them. Should I give up on them? No, they are to important to me to get rid of. This is now my main business. I spend all day, every day doing this. I keep them clean, feed them, mate them, advertise them and still keep them for future hobbist to have even though right this minute no one wants them.

We have all seen how a wanted species brings in the scum of the earth to take advantage of it. I have spent thousands of dollars on ooths this year alone and out of that, I have possibly 2 maybe 3 new species for sale here in the US. I just did my taxes for last year (corporation taxes not due on the 15th like public taxes are) and last year alone I spent over 4000.00 on ooths. And out of that expense I am lucky if a fourth of those ooths hatch, usually out of ten purchased of any species one will hatch. As many on here can testify to, some I could owe an ooth to and some who owe me ooths, they just do not all hatch, so unless they are readilly available, and as of yet, I do not have an automatic ooth laying machine like Villosa has, I have to wait just like every breeder does for the ooths to pop out :lol: 

This may seem a little over some of your heads, but business is not just cut and dried. Someone asked me about a week ago why some things were priced in their opinion high on my site, I then explained to them that when in business you have to have a supply (inventory) of items to sell ready for when a customer comes and purchases something, they don't want to wait a couple weeks to get the item, so you buy it ahead of time and keep it until someone wants it, in the meantime, their money is tied up in merchandise that may sit here for weeks or months or years even until it is sold. In a way it is money in the bank, but unless sold it is not really a liquid asset. Also when dealing with live insects, and especially things u do not raise yourself, like the flies, u loose money every week when they are not shipped to you on time or not shipped at all and you and your customers both suffer then.

So what may seem to the hobbiest as high prices are usually not, but no one really has the time or energy to explain why the price is actually most of the time the lowest they can get away with and still live :lol:


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## wero626 (Sep 20, 2009)

Yeah i get how rare species can be alot cause there really rare in regions..But it sucks that there so much money and some not even afforadble because $100 + is just alot for any average person to buy a insect but its all in what you can buy..But i can see how things can get exspensive if your breeding them and especially how massa man mentioned they might die also so its a big risked your taking but all in all there all great critters and to me i enjoy recieving them and having them so im glad that we have all these types of species i was on the internet earlier and it said theres like 3000 species of mantids or somthing i dont know if it was exaggertating but WOW is that alot.


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

its 2000 species not 3000 and who knows would be great if there could be underwater species or something but there is still uncharted places on earth so who knows what unknown mantis will be discovered!


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## ABbuggin (Sep 20, 2009)

agent A said:


> I don't get why people charge high prices for an insect. If I were selling mantids, I'd only charge like 20 dollars for Idolomantis!


You might say this now, but when you raise them (gongylus have the same requirements as idolomantis) you have to pay for all the lights, the special net cages, and thousands of flies for months. At the end, you have hundreds in either one of them. This is why both species are so expensive.

Here's what I pay for my gongylus:

2 very large next cages, total= $30

3 60W lights , total= $45

a supply of bulbs for their life span, total apprx.= $20

the thousands of flies needed to feed them, my total is currently about $150 (remember, I order flies about twice a month, so this total always climbs)

the $45 ooth that I paid for

not to mention, all the labor required to rear them successfully, these aren't exactly _Creobroter_.

End total for me so far is $190, and I'll probably spend another $100 or more in flies before they die.

Now you see why certain species will always be expensive.


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

well hmm if I had them I would prob not change a single thing and keep them as I keep my other species as I think I could get by as I am very creative and yet like to keep things basic and simple!

What I dont get is why such a huge cage for this species as its not like its 100 feet long or something and its just like every other mantis just little bigger is all and how do you figure 45 dollars on the ooth is that what you pay or charge?!


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## massaman (Sep 20, 2009)

But within a few years it will be just like all the rest and the price for them will be lower or real cheap as it happens with everything else!

So this is the only species that crickets will have a negative effect on their ooths as I read in a few places and well I guess this species is never going to be in my possession as I dont like the requirements to take care of it and probably would not be able to meet all of it anyways!


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## ABbuggin (Sep 20, 2009)

massaman said:


> well hmm if I had them I would prob not change a single thing and keep them as I keep my other species as I think I could get by as I am very creative and yet like to keep things basic and simple!


Try saying that after you have put hundreds in them. I don't plan on charging an arm and a leg for them, (I dont like the idea of inflating prices through the roof just because they are rare) but I want to make my money back.



massaman said:


> What I dont get is why such a huge cage for this species as its not like its 100 feet long or something and its just like every other mantis just little bigger is all and how do you figure 45 dollars on the ooth is that what you pay or charge?!


They need a large cage because they are a very large species, (a subadult female takes up the entire palm of my hand when she stands in it) and I keep them together. I paid $45 for the ooth that I originally got my nymphs from.  



massaman said:


> But within a few years it will be just like all the rest and the price for them will be lower or real cheap as it happens with everything else!


I doubt that it will ever happen. They are to difficult/expensive for them to become mainstream, don't get me wrong here, I'm not beating my chest or anything. I failed at my first attempt with them.



massaman said:


> So this is the only species that crickets will have a negative effect on their ooths as I read in a few places and well I guess this species is never going to be in my possession as I dont like the requirements to take care of it and probably would not be able to meet all of it anyways!


That's why they are expensive. Not many have them, and they are rarely offered, especially in the USA.


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## Rick (Sep 21, 2009)

Lets leave it at that.


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