# H. coronatus mating



## neps (Feb 7, 2010)

Decided to see if I could get the H. coronatus to mate today. Managed to get a few shots of the endeavor....

Some observations:

1. The male was very timid about approaching the female, until she was actively eating. Then, he made his move to mount her very rapidly.

2. After a few moments, she tried to eat him. At that point, they were separated for a while until she had eaten more (a lot more!). After that, no problems were observed.

3. After mounting, the male made a series of very rapid drumming movements with his claws on the midsection of the female. This occurred every 5 minutes or so, and lasted for about 1.5 seconds.

4. Never did see them actually copulate. But, after a few hours, found the male off by himself, so removed him. Is this typical? Does it mean copulation actually occurred?

Now, the images:

Side shot







Frontal:






Overhead:






Taken while the male was drumming. Note blurred forelimbs.


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## sbugir (Feb 7, 2010)

Very cool, congrats on the mating, nice quote btw.


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## sufistic (Feb 7, 2010)

There's no confirmation that copulation occurred. I'd wait a few days to try again and have a visual confirmation of copulation. Good luck with them!


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## hibiscusmile (Feb 7, 2010)

Yea, what sufi said, if he did it once he can do it again.


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## sufistic (Feb 7, 2010)

hibiscusmile said:


> Yea, what sufi said, if he did it once he can do it again.


+1.


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## Katnapper (Feb 7, 2010)

sufistic said:


> There's no confirmation that copulation occurred. I'd wait a few days to try again and have a visual confirmation of copulation. Good luck with them!


+2  

Going to try some of mine tomorrow. Feeding them up well tonight!


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## sufistic (Feb 7, 2010)

Katnapper said:


> +2  Going to try some of mine tomorrow. Feeding them up well tonight!


That's fantastic Becky. I've just paired up some of my adult Orchids too. It's Orchid mating season!


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## Katnapper (Feb 7, 2010)

sufistic said:


> That's fantastic Becky. I've just paired up some of my adult Orchids too. It's Orchid mating season!


Thanks, Shaik!  I hope I have good luck with them... this is my first time attempting to breed this species.

At least the agonizing part of waiting (seemingly forever!) for the females to start molting to adult has passed (although I still have 2 left to molt to adult). One refused to eat tonight, and her wing buds are quite swollen. I'm hoping to find her a perfect adult in the morning!


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## sufistic (Feb 7, 2010)

Katnapper said:


> Thanks, Shaik!  I hope I have good luck with them... this is my first time attempting to breed this species. At least the agonizing part of waiting (seemingly forever!) for the females to start molting to adult has passed (although I still have 2 left to molt to adult). One refused to eat tonight, and her wing buds are quite swollen. I'm hoping to find her a perfect adult in the morning!


Fantastic. Good luck on the mating and don't forget some smooth jazz!


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## neps (Feb 8, 2010)

> There's no confirmation that copulation occurred. I'd wait a few days to try again and have a visual confirmation of copulation. Good luck with them!


Thanks! That was my plan. No way to be sure what happened, and the mantids are definitely keeping it to themselves!


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## sufistic (Feb 8, 2010)

neps said:


> Thanks! That was my plan. No way to be sure what happened, and the mantids are definitely keeping it to themselves!


Haha yeah. I wish you the best with breeding them! Keep us posted!


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2010)

If you didn't see it, it didn't happen. Those can be a real pain to mate. I've had males mount the female and just ride around on her back for several days doing nothing.


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## sufistic (Feb 8, 2010)

Rick said:


> If you didn't see it, it didn't happen. Those can be a real pain to mate. I've had males mount the female and just ride around on her back for several days doing nothing.


From what I've read based on the difficulties of mating Orchids in the West, I'm beginning to think that temperature might be a factor to trigger them to connect, perhaps similar to mating Gongys? So far, all my Orchid males immediately mount upon seeing a female and attempt to connect about a minute after mounting. The temperature here is almost always 30 degrees celsius during the day with a 1-3 degrees drop at night. This is of course just an assumption but there must be a reason why my males are studs!


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## neps (Feb 8, 2010)

sufistic said:


> From what I've read based on the difficulties of mating Orchids in the West, I'm beginning to think that temperature might be a factor to trigger them to connect, perhaps similar to mating Gongys? So far, all my Orchid males immediately mount upon seeing a female and attempt to connect about a minute after mounting. The temperature here is almost always 30 degrees celsius during the day with a 1-3 degrees drop at night. This is of course just an assumption but there must be a reason why my males are studs!


I agree! In fact, this thought crossed my mind while I was taking the pictures. I measured the temperature and humidity, and found them to be 26 C and 45% RH. So, a little cooler and drier than optimal, perhaps. Next time, I'm going to raise them to about 30 C and 80%. Will let you know what happens.


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## sufistic (Feb 8, 2010)

neps said:


> I agree! In fact, this thought crossed my mind while I was taking the pictures. I measured the temperature and humidity, and found them to be 26 C and 45% RH. So, a little cooler and drier than optimal, perhaps. Next time, I'm going to raise them to about 30 C and 80%. Will let you know what happens.


That's great! I'd love to know what happens. The humidity levels here ranges from 70-90% neps, maybe that'll help.


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## neps (Feb 9, 2010)

sufistic said:


> That's great! I'd love to know what happens. The humidity levels here ranges from 70-90% neps, maybe that'll help.


Thanks for the tip! I grow a lot of carnivorous plants from Borneo, and keep the mantids in that environment most of the time, so if I tweak conditions just a bit, they should be pretty close.


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## sufistic (Feb 9, 2010)

That's fantastic that you could replicate the temps and humidity levels of Borneo! There's just a slight difference between the climate of Borneo and West Malaysia, where I think the bloodline of most of the captive-bred Orchids come from.


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## Katnapper (Feb 9, 2010)

Well things are looking hopeful today!  I believe two of the three pairs I put together yesterday mated (successfully, I hope). Both of them were copulating within about 10 minutes after putting the males on each female's back. Witnessed drumming for the first time... yay!

The male of the other couple refused to stay on her back, and kept either crawling or flying away from her. So I tried a different male... and he too resisted all attempts to ride or stay with her. I ended up leaving these two in her net cage with her overnight. This morning, both were still staying their distance. I might try a different male or two with her instead of these two dunderheads today, hehe. But the other two couples, although not attached anymore, are still together with the male still riding around on the female's back.

I have two more females besides these to try to mate. One just molted to adult, and the other is still sub. I hope she molts soon!

I'm keeping the bug room at about 85 F., misting everyone either once or twice a day. I also have a humidifier running (when it will) in there. There is something wrong with the control panel on it, and you can only adjust it to 65% max humidity; and when it reaches it, it shuts off until you manually turn it on again. I wish I could find a good working humidfier... the ones I've had both have had things wrong with them. But the mistings make up for it.


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## sufistic (Feb 9, 2010)

That's great Becky! Wishing you the best with them! Sometimes the RH here would drop to around 50% and that's when my mantids start to become inactive. I'm still uncertain whether temps and humidity helps in copulation but if they do, your conditions do seem tropical to me and that might help.


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## PhilinYuma (Feb 9, 2010)

sufistic said:


> That's great Becky! Wishing you the best with them! Sometimes the RH here would drop to around 50% and that's when my mantids start to become inactive. I'm still uncertain whether temps and humidity helps in copulation but if they do, your conditions do seem tropical to me and that might help.


Here's some really nice news for folks who want to raise orchids in a net cage, where the RH is low. My houseflies die without adequate humidity, so I have started putting a 24oz plastic pot in each cube, containing peat moss and almost filled with water and covered with a cloth lid. I just checked the result of a cube that I treated last night. The figures in the room are 80.2F/40%RH and in the cube, without misting, 77.1/71RH. This means a _consistent_ gain of 31%RH and a loss of only 3.1F. I shall get temps of 85F before my air comes on, but I shall have to increase the humidity further to compensate for the increase in temp. I have less faith in the duration of increased humidity due to spraying than some experienced breeders, but normally, unlike the employed, I can easily mist t.i.d. In the summer, once I have that licked, orchids here I come!


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## neps (Feb 9, 2010)

Katnapper said:


> Well things are looking hopeful today!  I believe two of the three pairs I put together yesterday mated (successfully, I hope). Both of them were copulating within about 10 minutes after putting the males on each female's back. Witnessed drumming for the first time... yay!The male of the other couple refused to stay on her back, and kept either crawling or flying away from her. So I tried a different male... and he too resisted all attempts to ride or stay with her. I ended up leaving these two in her net cage with her overnight. This morning, both were still staying their distance. I might try a different male or two with her instead of these two dunderheads today, hehe. But the other two couples, although not attached anymore, are still together with the male still riding around on the female's back.
> 
> I have two more females besides these to try to mate. One just molted to adult, and the other is still sub. I hope she molts soon!
> 
> I'm keeping the bug room at about 85 F., misting everyone either once or twice a day. I also have a humidifier running (when it will) in there. There is something wrong with the control panel on it, and you can only adjust it to 65% max humidity; and when it reaches it, it shuts off until you manually turn it on again. I wish I could find a good working humidfier... the ones I've had both have had things wrong with them. But the mistings make up for it.


Congrats, Becky! Well done!


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## sufistic (Feb 10, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Here's some really nice news for folks who want to raise orchids in a net cage, where the RH is low. My houseflies die without adequate humidity, so I have started putting a 24oz plastic pot in each cube, containing peat moss and almost filled with water and covered with a cloth lid. I just checked the result of a cube that I treated last night. The figures in the room are 80.2F/40%RH and in the cube, without misting, 77.1/71RH. This means a _consistent_ gain of 31%RH and a loss of only 3.1F. I shall get temps of 85F before my air comes on, but I shall have to increase the humidity further to compensate for the increase in temp. I have less faith in the duration of increased humidity due to spraying than some experienced breeders, but normally, unlike the employed, I can easily mist t.i.d. In the summer, once I have that licked, orchids here I come!


Thanks for sharing Phil. I think your technique is definitely better for retaining humidity in a large enclosure with adequate ventilation i.e. net cages. My mantids, which are mostly S.E. Asian, can definitely tolerate low humidity levels (no lesser than 50% RH), but they turn docile and lose interest in eating and mating. This happens more often with Hymenopodids than others.


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## Katnapper (Feb 10, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Here's some really nice news for folks who want to raise orchids in a net cage, where the RH is low. My houseflies die without adequate humidity, so I have started putting a 24oz plastic pot in each cube, containing peat moss and almost filled with water and covered with a cloth lid. I just checked the result of a cube that I treated last night. The figures in the room are 80.2F/40%RH and in the cube, without misting, 77.1/71RH. This means a _consistent_ gain of 31%RH and a loss of only 3.1F. I shall get temps of 85F before my air comes on, but I shall have to increase the humidity further to compensate for the increase in temp. I have less faith in the duration of increased humidity due to spraying than some experienced breeders, but normally, unlike the employed, I can easily mist t.i.d. In the summer, once I have that licked, orchids here I come!


Interesting idea, info, and tip, Phil! I might try something like this myself... except I'm thinking of all those water crystals I have instead of the peat moss.


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