# im doing a talk on praying mantids in 6 days



## beckyl92 (Nov 22, 2009)

i'll be adding random questions here now and again if thats okay  

the first one i have is which mantis has the lowest hatch rate and which mantis has the highest? im guessing the highest is the chinese?


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## massaman (Nov 22, 2009)

I think the lowest would include the gambians and the brunners or other stick mantids and giant asians would be one of the ones with the most as well as the chinese and other larger mantis species!


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## beckyl92 (Nov 22, 2009)

massaman said:


> I think the lowest would include the gambians and the brunners or other stick mantids and giant asians would be one of the ones with the most as well as the chinese and other larger mantis species!


how many do gambians hatch out?


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## Emile.Wilson (Nov 22, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> how many do gambians hatch out?


around 5-15 i believe


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## Rick (Nov 22, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> i'll be adding random questions here now and again if thats okay  the first one i have is which mantis has the lowest hatch rate and which mantis has the highest? im guessing the highest is the chinese?


I don't think that is a question that can be answered. Yes, chinese often hatch out many nymphs, but all species can lay ooths that vary in size and hatch rate. I thnk I would stick to questions that are absolute.


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## jameslongo (Nov 22, 2009)

Rick is right. All mantids will have a highly-varied hatch rate due to many aspects, including food intake, genetics &amp; maturity. I've had 2 females of the same species &amp; similar age have very different hatch rates. You should probably look at maximum quantities.


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## agent A (Nov 22, 2009)

jameslongo said:


> I've had 2 females of the same species &amp; similar age have very different hatch rates.


did you also have females who's ooths had different hatch times?


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## Katnapper (Nov 22, 2009)

Best of luck on your talk, Becky. I did a talk/presentation to each of the 4th grade science classes in Jesse's school last year... it was fun. Wishing you the best...


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 22, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> Best of luck on your talk, Becky. I did a talk/presentation to each of the 4th grade science classes in Jesse's school last year... it was fun. Wishing you the best...


Me, too. Who are you giving the talk to?


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## beckyl92 (Nov 23, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Me, too. Who are you giving the talk to?


its a forum i go on based in my area  

we meet up monthly, someone does a presentation (last time a guy did it on a trip to malaysian and the different inverts he found)

we have a trade/buy/sell section and we do a raffle were you can win different inverts/enclosures and we do stuff to earn money to make the club better. its pretty fun  

the talks only infront of 20 people. im nervous! haha

i need to make a plan.. what i was going to do was talk about the different stages starting from the ootheca. i was gonna make it practical by passing one round. im gonna bring a few adult mantids and compare males and female to each other e.g.

damn hope it goes well. i've never done a speech in my life.


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## Peter Clausen (Nov 23, 2009)

One of my favorite things to do is take bugs to classrooms. You will find that all eyes are on the mantises and not on you. With all the noises kids make during these events you will be struggling to get a word in between their fascinations, exclamations of fear and their teacher kindly and constantly telling them to settle down. The greatest challenge is not running out of time before you run out of bugs.

But I\'ll share one warning with you...kids ask the toughest questions! It can be awkward trying to manage subjects like reproduction or biodiversity at a religious-oriented school, for example.

I usually begin with some short discussion of how I came to be interested in bugs (my backyard) and pop a bug out and discuss some of the basic body parts before beginning the bug by bug discussion of my live collection. Nothing makes an impact like letting the children handle bugs if the teacher (and individual students are up for it). It can take 5 minutes for everybody to get their turn with a single bug. And before you know it, you\'re out of time!

Hey, take your camera and ask the teacher to snap a photo of your presentation!

Here's me doing a few at the annual Bugguide.net Gathering this summer:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/316829

http://bugguide.net/node/view/303101/bgimage

And a teacher friend's classroom photo album: http://www.insectgeeks.com/user/gallery/al...Phil/album_460/


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## revmdn (Nov 23, 2009)

I often think about asking my daughter's teachers about doing a little presentation about mantids in her class, but then I remember how crazy 5 and 6 year olds are and it scares me away.


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## beckyl92 (Nov 23, 2009)

Peter said:


> One of my favorite things to do is take bugs to classrooms. You will find that all eyes are on the mantises and not on you. With all the noises kids make during these events you will be struggling to get a word in between their fascinations, exclamations of fear and their teacher kindly and constantly telling them to settle down. The greatest challenge is not running out of time before you run out of bugs. But I\'ll share one warning with you...kids ask the toughest questions! It can be awkward trying to manage subjects like reproduction or biodiversity at a religious-oriented school, for example.
> 
> I usually begin with some short discussion of how I came to be interested in bugs (my backyard) and pop a bug out and discuss some of the basic body parts before beginning the bug by bug discussion of my live collection. Nothing makes an impact like letting the children handle bugs if the teacher (and individual students are up for it). It can take 5 minutes for everybody to get their turn with a single bug. And before you know it, you\'re out of time!
> 
> ...


thanks for the ideas  

what species is this mantis? http://www.insectgeeks.com/user/gallery/vi...8106/album_460/

i've never see it before!

i'm starting to feel excited instead of nervous now  i'm looking forward to it.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 23, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> thanks for the ideas  what species is this mantis? http://www.insectgeeks.com/user/gallery/vi...8106/album_460/
> 
> i've never see it before!
> 
> i'm starting to feel excited instead of nervous now  i'm looking forward to it.


I think that that's a water bug eating a cricket, Becky! How old are the kids to whom you'll be giving yr presentation?


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## beckyl92 (Nov 23, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> I think that that's a water bug eating a cricket, Becky! How old are the kids to whom you'll be giving yr presentation?


they're not kids :lol: 

i said above that its a group of people from my area from an invert forum.

theres gonna be a few kids there but its mainly adults. the majority of them keep tarantulas and scorpions. they asked me to do a speech on mantds so they could learn more about them.


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## revmdn (Nov 23, 2009)

Kids are way more scary.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 23, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> they're not kids :lol: i said above that its a group of people from my area from an invert forum.
> 
> theres gonna be a few kids there but its mainly adults. the majority of them keep tarantulas and scorpions. they asked me to do a speech on mantds so they could learn more about them.


Sorry, I missed that! Well, you have the best of audiences, friends who are interested in what you have to say. You might want to look at the stickies here and steal, or rather borrow, anything that looks helpful. like the thing on sexing nymphs. I was going to say that you could mention some unusual foods, aside from insects, like honey and small fish, but decided not to. A lot of people are very sensitive about stealing the bees' hard earned honey.  And don't forget to promote Mantid Forum and mention that you sometimes have mantids/ooths for sale!


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## beckyl92 (Nov 26, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Sorry, I missed that! Well, you have the best of audiences, friends who are interested in what you have to say. You might want to look at the stickies here and steal, or rather borrow, anything that looks helpful. like the thing on sexing nymphs. I was going to say that you could mention some unusual foods, aside from insects, like honey and small fish, but decided not to. A lot of people are very sensitive about stealing the bees' hard earned honey.  And don't forget to promote Mantid Forum and mention that you sometimes have mantids/ooths for sale!


i'll defently mention this forum


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## beckyl92 (Nov 26, 2009)

another random question:

whats the largest and the smallest species and how big do they grow?


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## charleyandbecky (Dec 1, 2009)

Here's me doing a few at the annual Bugguide.net Gathering this summer:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/316829

http://bugguide.net/node/view/303101/bgimage

And a teacher friend's classroom photo album: http://www.insectgeeks.com/user/gallery/al...Phil/album_460/

I love the picture with the little girl on the end doing a mantis pose!

I've been thinking about going over to my daughter's kindergarten class and talking about mantids. I did a talk at a friend's class last year (friend is a kindergarten teacher) and it went very well, but for some reason my own daughter's class scares me! Probably because she drew a picture yesterday of what her teacher would look like if she was a mantis and then took it to the teacher! :lol: 

Rebecca


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## massaman (Dec 1, 2009)

largest I think is the Toxodera denticulata mantis or something like that which is like 20 cms long or the Ischnomantis gigas which is 17 cms long

smallest mantis is probably the ant mantis or something like that!


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