# Nigerian Flower molted today



## lakegrove (Feb 11, 2007)

Hi my nigerian flower mantis molted today, im a newbie and was wondering is it now a adult? Can anyone tell me if it is a male or female? i tried to get pics of underbelly but it is very hard. thank for any help...


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## wuwu (Feb 11, 2007)

that looks like an adult female. congrats.


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## lakegrove (Feb 11, 2007)

Female, Nice Thanks alot


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## Rick (Feb 12, 2007)

Yep, adult female it does appear to be. Once they have wings they are adult.


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## yen_saw (Feb 12, 2007)

Hi Louis, glad to see she matured into adult for you, good job!

One easy way to identify the gender for this species lies on the wing. Female always have two visible yellow "dot" with black ring while male has none of it.

Female






Male






It is not easy to identify gender through antenna length but the abodomen for female is significantly wider than male, this can be observed even before they are adult. When adult, the abdomen is visible from dorsal view (female) while the abdomen is fully covered up by its wing for male.






Both male and female reach to about 3-4 cm.


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## lakegrove (Feb 12, 2007)

hey yen, thanks that is a easy way to tell male from female now lets see if i can get a male now


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## Ian (Feb 13, 2007)

Congrats on your new adult female


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## hibiscusmile (Feb 13, 2007)

not only nice mantis... nice ring too!


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## yen_saw (Feb 13, 2007)

Thanks Hibiscusmile, the jade ring has been with me for the past 10 yrs.


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## lakegrove (Feb 18, 2007)

ok i had another nigerian molt last night but.... as you can see it didnt go so well, the wings didnt form right, my question is, is it a adult?? Will it be able to mate? Male or Female? It looks alert and can move around well, should i just cut the flaps off where the wings were supposed to be? Is there any hope in this nigerian? thanks...

Lou


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## yen_saw (Feb 18, 2007)

Hi Louis, that's too bad  looks like a female with deformed wing. I guess she could still mate if the male is not picky, but adult male is likely to avoid her.


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