# why everything but not ants?



## C.way (Nov 13, 2009)

hi all, I'm just wondering why people feeds all sort of insect but not ants since I'm advice by many not to feed mantis with ants. I try out with my new born mantis and they don't seems to be enjoying it, just purely attacking it but not eating...hope that some one can give a clear picture of why, thanks

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## ismart (Nov 13, 2009)

Because a lot of ants use poisons, and chemicals as a means of defence. Getting sprayed in the face by formic acid or being stung can not be very pleasant. Not to mention some ants have very strong mandibles that can crush or pierce there attackers/victims.


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## bassist (Nov 13, 2009)

ismart said:


> Because a lot of ants use poisons, and chemicals as a means of defence. Getting sprayed in the face by formic acid or being stung can not be very pleasant. Not to mention some ants have very strong mandibles that can crush or pierce there attackers/victims.


Plus they will work together.


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## Christian (Nov 13, 2009)

Some mantid species have adapted to prey on ants in the wild, they won't take any ant species though. Myrmecophagy is known in _Pyrgomantis, Tarachodes, Liturgusa, Eremiaphila, Gonatista_ &amp; _Amorphoscelis_, that is mostly bark- or ground-living species.

Other mantids avoid ants or eat them only occasionally.


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## Matticus (Nov 14, 2009)

I've also heard tell that most ants are very acidic. Chitinous creatures in general aren't usually favorites for carnivorous insects.


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## Ntsees (Nov 14, 2009)

As what they say above. Whenever my mantids feed on ants (gray field ant), they get sprayed by the ant. Still, my mantids (the released ones) eat them when food is scarce although they prefer other prey.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 14, 2009)

Interesting topic. As Christian points out, "they wont take [just] any species." I have seen _Stagmomantis limbata_, the AZ bordered mantis, take ants, and the only kind that it takes around here is the most fearsome of them all, the fire ant, Solenopsis sp. This ant has formidable jaws and a massive thorax, but like most ants, the abdomen is much more vulnerable. The major difference between this and "trail forming" ants is that the latter use formic acid both for defense and for guiding their brethren (sistren?) to food and home. As a result, they are imbued with the stuff. So far as I know, fire ants and their kin don't use formic acid either for trails or for poison. Instead, they use -- you guessed it -- solenopsin, a very interesting compound indeed. Our ant expert hypopneura knows much more than I about the subject, so I hope that he can amplify this and correct any errors.


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## C.way (Nov 14, 2009)

thanks for the reply, now that I have a clearer picture of why they don't fancy ants compared to other moving stuffs


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## wero626 (Nov 15, 2009)

Actually when i first got started with the mantid hobby we had some nymphs and me and my bro went outside and fed them ants i dont think ants are dangerous for mantids as long as there the black ones the only thing is there really small ants and mantids grow pretty fast...And there really hard to catch i have enough problems with ants in our house haha should let a mantid go in my kitchen to eat all the ants :lol:


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## Dwaink (Nov 15, 2009)

reptileman said:


> Actually when i first got started with the mantid hobby we had some nymphs and me and my bro went outside and fed them ants i dont think ants are dangerous for mantids as long as there the black ones the only thing is there really small ants and mantids grow pretty fast...And there really hard to catch i have enough problems with ants in our house haha should let a mantid go in my kitchen to eat all the ants :lol:


Hi,

I posted this story awhile back about what happened to me and why ants are dangerous. I had a Texas unicorn in a 32oz container, one day i saw an ant in the bottom carrying of what was a wing from pray that the mantis did not eat, sometimes they don't eat the wings or drop them on the bottom of the container. I didn't think anything of it because i figured the mantis would just eat the ant, well i was wrong! the next day when i checked on the mantis it was gone! the ant had left a trail for others to follow they completely cut the mantis to bits and carried him off, no trace was ever found, they took everything.

I have observed from Ooth that i have placed in my back yard that when they hatch if one ant finds the Ooth the rest of the colony will be their plucking the nymphs as the come right out of the Ooth before the even get a Chance to dry out. Then carry them off. There weapons, chemicals and numbers are formidable. Ants are dangerous.

Regards


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## C.way (Nov 15, 2009)

Happy Mantis said:


> Hi,I posted this story awhile back about what happened to me and why ants are dangerous. I had a Texas unicorn in a 32oz container, one day i saw an ant in the bottom carrying of what was a wing from pray that the mantis did not eat, sometimes they don't eat the wings or drop them on the bottom of the container. I didn't think anything of it because i figured the mantis would just eat the ant, well i was wrong! the next day when i checked on the mantis it was gone! the ant had left a trail for others to follow they completely cut the mantis to bits and carried him off, no trace was ever found, they took everything.
> 
> I have observed from Ooth that i have placed in my back yard that when they hatch if one ant finds the Ooth the rest of the colony will be their plucking the nymphs as the come right out of the Ooth before the even get a Chance to dry out. Then carry them off. There weapons, chemicals and numbers are formidable. Ants are dangerous.
> 
> Regards


i see, so that means, ants are colony stuff and once the other get contact to one that are potentially being the pray of the predator, the predator ends up being the pray, sounds dangerous though, will stop giving ants to my little critters from now on, thanks for all the information


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 15, 2009)

Happy Mantis said:


> Hi,I posted this story awhile back about what happened to me and why ants are dangerous. I had a Texas unicorn in a 32oz container, one day i saw an ant in the bottom carrying of what was a wing from pray that the mantis did not eat, sometimes they don't eat the wings or drop them on the bottom of the container. I didn't think anything of it because i figured the mantis would just eat the ant, well i was wrong! the next day when i checked on the mantis it was gone! the ant had left a trail for others to follow they completely cut the mantis to bits and carried him off, no trace was ever found, they took everything.
> 
> I have observed from Ooth that i have placed in my back yard that when they hatch if one ant finds the Ooth the rest of the colony will be their plucking the nymphs as the come right out of the Ooth before the even get a Chance to dry out. Then carry them off. There weapons, chemicals and numbers are formidable. Ants are dangerous.
> 
> Regards


I have no trouble with the idea of ants eating new fry, but you never actually saw the ants kill dismember and transport bits of yr mantis back to their nest, did you? Do you have a screen lid on yr pot?


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## Dwaink (Nov 16, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> I have no trouble with the idea of ants eating new fry, but you never actually saw the ants kill dismember and transport bits of yr mantis back to their nest, did you? Do you have a screen lid on yr pot?


It was a fiberglass screen lid, no it didn't get lose. I certainly didn't watch it cut up my mantis!!

what is yr pot?

Regards


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 16, 2009)

Happy Mantis said:


> It was a screen lid, no it didn't get lose. I certainly didn't watch it cut up my mantis!!what is yr pot?
> 
> Regards


Tiny ants do not go to their nest and tell their friends, "I just found a huge living critter. Let's go and kill it and chop it into pieces tiny enough to go through a mesh screen and then disappear without trace." Where on earth did you get such an idea, a TV show on African driver ants? You certainly didn't get it from any book on U.S. ants, and you haven't observed it!

My guess is that yr mantis was carried off by a Robo Fly.


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## Matticus (Nov 16, 2009)

Happy Mantis said:


> Hi,I posted this story awhile back about what happened to me and why ants are dangerous. I had a Texas unicorn in a 32oz container, one day i saw an ant in the bottom carrying of what was a wing from pray that the mantis did not eat, sometimes they don't eat the wings or drop them on the bottom of the container. I didn't think anything of it because i figured the mantis would just eat the ant, well i was wrong! the next day when i checked on the mantis it was gone! the ant had left a trail for others to follow they completely cut the mantis to bits and carried him off, no trace was ever found, they took everything.
> 
> I have observed from Ooth that i have placed in my back yard that when they hatch if one ant finds the Ooth the rest of the colony will be their plucking the nymphs as the come right out of the Ooth before the even get a Chance to dry out. Then carry them off. There weapons, chemicals and numbers are formidable. Ants are dangerous.
> 
> Regards


lol.

And that's how conspiracy theories start.


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## Orin (Nov 16, 2009)

I've seen ants chopping up and carrying away rather huge insects, however they tend to leave thick body parts like the head or pronotum since they can't cut up thickened exoskeleton. Also, they tend to go after dead or immobile prey (eggs, pupae).


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 16, 2009)

You mean something huge, like this?  This is a seed case, of course.


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## cloud jaguar (Nov 16, 2009)

ants taste like pepper


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## Katnapper (Nov 16, 2009)

Arkanis said:


> ants taste like pepper


  Do we want to know how you know this? :blink:


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## sbugir (Nov 16, 2009)

Lol youtube: Ants eat gecko time lapse. Very scary.


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## sufistic (Nov 16, 2009)

Ants and Mantids don't mix well together. I caught a large adult female Hierodula and let it roam freely in the house. Next day the place where the Hierodula would usually hang out was like a murder scene. Its body parts were casually being carried away by a trail of ants. One single ant was 1/500 the size of that large Hierodula mind you!


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## C.way (Dec 17, 2009)

since that there are all kind of suggestion here, I tried it out myself, feeding two tiny red ants to bunch of young mantis I have here, result-only a few of them ate them(most likely cause by hunger), some hold on the ants and throw away, then showing some cleaning act(seems like the ants spray acid on them), some did not even bother about those ant

Assumption- They will eat those ant given the condition that they have no choice when they are starved


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## sufistic (Dec 17, 2009)

C.way said:


> since that there are all kind of suggestion here, I tried it out myself, feeding two tiny red ants to bunch of young mantis I have here, result-only a few of them ate them(most likely cause by hunger), some hold on the ants and throw away, then showing some cleaning act(seems like the ants spray acid on them), some did not even bother about those antAssumption- They will eat those ant given the condition that they have no choice when they are starved


Interesting observation. What species of mantids?


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## C.way (Dec 17, 2009)

miomantis, consisting of 2nd instar and 3rd instar


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