# Giant dragonfly. Good eats or dangerous?



## BriGuy (Oct 2, 2012)

I usually go on a bug hunt walk during my lunch break to provide supplementary food for my adult female Chinese mantis and find various small insects for my girl to munch on. Yesterday was a bit cold outside and it allowed me to catch a giant dragonfly that is probably about as big as my mantis (4" or so). I know that dragonflys are predators themselves and I've seen some pretty scary pics of their mouths so I'm pretty hesitant to feed it to her.

How dangerous would a freezer-stunned dragonfly be to my mantis? Should I just err on the side of caution and set it free or will she be able to manage it? Thanks


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## SilentDeviL (Oct 2, 2012)

Well in Taiwan mantis Breeder never Feed Dragon Fly due to they have contact with River or lake ... that can have tape worm ... If the mantis got some Egg in to their system ... the mantis will die and a 10 inch tape worm will come out of his or her [email protected]@.


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## kotomi (Oct 2, 2012)

I caught a giant dragonfly once when I was out playing tennis... it was trying to lay eggs on the court, and I felt bad for it. I managed to catch it and bring it back to my parent's house. My parents have a small lake on their property. When I let it go, it climbed up my hand to my fingers and proceeded to bite the living ###### out of me before flying away. Those things can easily draw blood, so I'd be wary of giving them to a mantis.


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## Paradoxica (Oct 2, 2012)

You could clip a wing just to be sure that the mantis has the advantage.


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## MandellaMandy123 (Oct 2, 2012)

I'd probably let it go, those wings are pretty strong and could hurt a mantis, even if clipped. And plus some dragonflies bite. And then there's the parasite issue....


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## JSaff86 (Oct 2, 2012)

i would clip of some of its legs but leave a few so it still catches your chineses attention. The mantis is much more powerful then the dragonfly its a no contest. Im not too sure about parasites but i would say go for it. If the thing does bite or struggle the mantis will probably remove the head. I kinda enjoy a little bit of a struggle with prey items makes things more interesting  . i say drop the dragon fly in with her and enjoy the show.


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## brancsikia339 (Oct 2, 2012)

I've fed mantids dragonflies but i honestly wouldn't recommend it due to the sheer strength of those jaws


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## justrokkit (Oct 2, 2012)

brancsikia339 said:


> I've fed mantids dragonflies but i honestly wouldn't recommend it due to the sheer strength of those jaws


Agreed. I used to go down to the pond and catch dragonflies, then feed them whatever. Their mandibles are for crunching, so you're running a big risk. I would not go there.


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## angelofdeathzz (Oct 3, 2012)

In the wild the dragonfly would just be a 4 course meal, any healthy, well and hungry adult mantis should make short work of it, I don't think the dragonfly will like the clamp down from the raptors that lock it in place while it gets eaten? Crickets, hoppers and locus all have mandibles and they are just dinner as well?


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## aNisip (Oct 3, 2012)

I feed my mantises wild caugt dragonflies all the time, the mandibles don't serve a problem at all...


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## Domanating (Oct 4, 2012)

AndrewNisip said:


> I feed my mantises wild caugt dragonflies all the time, the mandibles don't serve a problem at all...


This.

I feed my mantids with more dangerous insects like big grasshoppers with their huge powerful jaws, way worse than a dragonfly. Apart from one non serious incident a mantis can deal well against big prey


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## BriGuy (Oct 7, 2012)

For the record, I ended up not feeding the dragonfly to my girl. The warnings about the strength of the mouth/wings and especially the possibility of parasites made it simply not worth the life of my pet. I froze the dragonfly to preserve it to take to work and examine under a dissecting microscope (TOTALLY awesome and great for insects). There is no camera, but I tried to take some pics through the viewpiece with really poor results unfortunately. In person though, the crunching mouthparts did look very intimidating (especially if they were scaled up to human size).

Here's the dragonfly with a $20 for scale

Here's the mouthpart under the scope with the extra pointy parts highlighted.


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## Domanating (Oct 8, 2012)

I give mine this Katydid species:











The dragon fly's jaws are good for slicing and are very weak. This Katydids jaws have a real crushing power and i've witnessed them trying multiple times to break the mantis fore limbs in an attempt to escape but they are just too tough and are built to withstand other insects fighting and biting.

But when there's the possibility of parasites that's another issue. Fortunately i have no such thing as parasite infected insects in my country. There are but none that could harm a mantis.

Edit: i don't know why, when i resize the images to a more smaller suitable size and click "post reply" the images return to original size.


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