# Toxodera sp.



## khabirun

Waddup guys, here are some pics of the T.beieri and S.porioni, the Toxodera fimbriata however died while we were on our way back from Cameron, it died cause of some black liquid stuff coming out of his abdomen. It's been more than a week and the other 2 are fine, especially the beieri, wish us luck that she'll reach adulthood safe and sound.

Toxodera beieri and Stenotoxodera porioni, very interesting species of mantids, it's true what the aboriginals said about how they must be hanging in order to eat, I've tried giving them food while they're up on their enclosure, they'll just throw the food away. These mantids sure got attitude, but i tried something else, giving them food while hanging under the cover of their enclosure, they didn't waste any time, they snatch it straight away from my tweezers and start raping the mealworm lol. Here are some pics

T.beieri





































S.porioni
















tbc...


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## khabirun

cont'd..
















Enjoy, more pictures will come soon.


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## ABbuggin

I see they don't mind tackling large prey. The male reminds me of my Sybilla, pretosia.


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## Emile.Wilson

That's amazing, good luck with em' and keep us posted on how they are doing.


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## sufistic

ABbuggin said:


> I see they don't mind tackling large prey. The male reminds me of my Sybilla, pretosia.


They're actually quite skittish when it comes to tackling larger prey. Only chance of them eating these superworms is when we hand-feed them.



Emile said:


> That's amazing, good luck with em' and keep us posted on how they are doing.


Many thanks and will do.


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## Rick

Great pics. Thanks for sharing.


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## Katnapper

It's very nice to have pics and information about them from someone who is actually keeping them.  Keep up the good work, and best of luck with them!


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## sufistic

Katnapper said:


> It's very nice to have pics and information about them from someone who is actually keeping them.  Keep up the good work, and best of luck with them!


Yup. We used to read up a lot of info from people who've never actually reared these. I used to hear this and that about certain types of S.E. Asia mantids and where to locate them and it turns out that people would almost always give us info that's inaccurate.


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## Opivy

Wow, craziest looking bug I've ever seen.


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## sbugir

Is there a reason as to why they have to eat upside down :huh: ?


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## sufistic

Opivy said:


> Wow, craziest looking bug I've ever seen.


True. Its docile nature totally contradicts how radical it looks.



lemmiwinks said:


> Is there a reason as to why they have to eat upside down :huh: ?


From what we observed, they'd hang upside down at a certain spot 100% of the time. As we all know, almost all mantids like to do that, but these Toxos practically spend their entire lives upside down without moving at all. It seems that they're made to prey on insects that moves around on the ground surface.


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## yen_saw

wow nice! Thanks for sharing the pic Khabirun, there are so few pics for this type of mantis shown around on net so it is great that this forum got to see many of them here.

So they accept hand feed food then. Not too timid as I first thought. They do alright with meal worms?


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## sufistic

yen_saw said:


> wow nice! Thanks for sharing the pic Khabirun, there are so few pics for this type of mantis shown around on net so it is great that this forum got to see many of them here. So they accept hand feed food then. Not too timid as I first thought. They do alright with meal worms?


So far so good Yen. We wanna try crickets but the ones being sold here don't come in small sizes.


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## Katnapper

sufistic said:


> So far so good Yen. We wanna try crickets but the ones being sold here don't come in small sizes.


Cut the crickets in half and hand feed.


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## sufistic

Katnapper said:


> Cut the crickets in half and hand feed.


I wanted to do that but my brother (khabirun) has cricket-phobia. He's afraid it'll kill the Toxos.


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## yeatzee

sufistic said:


> I wanted to do that but my brother (khabirun) has cricket-phobia. He's afraid it'll kill the Toxos.


A cut in half cricket killing the Toxodera sp.? Thats a pretty hardcore cricket :mellow:


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## Fisherman_Brazil

Great! just great!


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## sufistic

yeatzee said:


> A cut in half cricket killing the Toxodera sp.? Thats a pretty hardcore cricket :mellow:


LOL. He's more worried whether or not the crickets are diseased.



Fisherman_Brazil said:


> Great! just great!


Thanks.


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## khabirun

sufistic said:


> LOL. He's more worried whether or not the crickets are diseased.


Yea pretty much it, i don't mind feeding the toxos crickets, if i have about 50 of them, its just, its a risk i don't wanna take, I've had my fair share of deaths because of crickets, whole months of nice wild caught stuff, then bam! they're dead when i started giving them crickets (gut loaded with honey and pollen) when i didn't have time to go hunt food for them. So i guess I'll just stick to meal worms on weekdays, and wild caught stuff on weekends.


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## mantidian

hey khabirun you may want to breed roaches as feeders, more nutritious than mealworms. I know a friend in Singapore who has them let me know if you want any.


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## sufistic

mantidian said:


> hey khabirun you may want to breed roaches as feeders, more nutritious than mealworms. I know a friend in Singapore who has them let me know if you want any.


What kind of roaches?


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## revmdn

I'm blown away, so cool.


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## mantidian

I think their turkistan roaches.

Anyway any tips for mantis hunting in malaysia?


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## Kruszakus

Are we looking at an introduction of a new species into culture or what?


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## Opivy

lol! here here krusz


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## khabirun

Kruszakus said:


> Are we looking at an introduction of a new species into culture or what?


Sorry for the late reply.

Not really culturing, we're just trying to rear this one nymph first, if we succeed, then our next Cameron Highlands trip will solely be for acquiring loads of T.beieri and other toxos, then i can safely say that T.beieri will be introduced in culture. Anyways, wish us luck on taking care of this beautiful mantis.


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## revmdn

Good luck.


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## Katnapper

Good luck!!!


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## sufistic

revmdn said:


> Good luck.





Katnapper said:


> Good luck!!!


Many thanks!


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## Mantibama

Thanks for sharing the pics! They are absolutely stunning. Congratulations on the find, you are very fortunate to live in such a unique area with such diverse mantids! I'm envious if you can't tell  Good luck bringing them in culture! I know I'm excited for your impending success.


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## yeatzee

lol, no pressure :lol:


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## sufistic

Sunday 20th December 2009 approx. 0800 hrs. Possibly first (crappy) video taken of a Toxodera sp. catching live prey.


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## [email protected]

Cool!!! I like the way she sways.


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## sufistic

Chase said:


> Cool!!! I like the way she sways.


Yeah Chase, she can actually sway up to a 180 degress in rotation without moving her legs. She's just awesome.


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## ABbuggin

I love the way she positions her reportorial arms when trying to catch the butterfly! :blink:


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## revmdn

I just don't get tierd of looking at that mantis. Wonderful.


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## Katnapper

Nice video!


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## sufistic

ABbuggin said:


> I love the way she positions her reportorial arms when trying to catch the butterfly! :blink:


Yeah Andrew. Similar to this

Thanks Becky.


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## Rick

Awesome vid! Looks like she is on a swivel the way she turns.


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## sufistic

Rick said:


> Awesome vid! Looks like she is on a swivel the way she turns.


Thanks Rick. I have this urge to go to Malaysia right now to get some more Toxodera just so we can culture them. Can't do it though cos of work and family. Maybe next year.


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## Rick

sufistic said:


> Thanks Rick. I have this urge to go to Malaysia right now to get some more Toxodera just so we can culture them. Can't do it though cos of work and family. Maybe next year.


I'm sure you will get them eventually.


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## sufistic

Rick said:


> I'm sure you will get them eventually.


Thanks for the encouragement Rick, it's helpful.


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## Rick

Is the female an adult? She lay any ooths?


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## sufistic

Rick said:


> Is the female an adult? She lay any ooths?


Not yet Rick. From the looks of it, she's either sub-sub adult or sub adult. Hopefully she turns adult safe and sound and lay a couple of ooths even if they're infertile. That way we can see what the ooths would look like.


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## MantidLord

sufistic said:


> Not yet Rick. From the looks of it, she's either sub-sub adult or sub adult. Hopefully she turns adult safe and sound and lay a couple of ooths even if they're infertile. That way we can see what the ooths would look like.


Wow, how large is she now? She's gonna be pretty huge. Awesome pics btw, and best of luck. Loved the video.


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## sufistic

MantidLord said:


> Wow, how large is she now? She's gonna be pretty huge. Awesome pics btw, and best of luck. Loved the video.


We haven't really measured yet. But here's a Japanese comparison photo I found of a _Toxodera fimbriata_ and a _Toxodera beieri_ adult. Notice that in that photo, their limbs are gone. Toxos will eat their limbs if stressed. Sadly, those two didn't make it.

Here's another photo of an Aboriginal holding a _Toxodera beieri_ female adult. You can roughly estimate the size of a female adult from this photo.


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## khabirun

Hello guys, some update on this baby.

Her first molt while in captivity. She's been with us for 5 weeks and 2 days, and after that long period of time she molted. We're really happy at the moment lol


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## mantisfart2

Great news, good sign that shes moulting successfully in captivity, you must have the conditions spot on.


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## sufistic

mantisfart2 said:


> Great news, good sign that shes moulting successfully in captivity, you must have the conditions spot on.


Thanks Kev. We don't really give her much attention. We mist her enclosure like probably once a week and she seldom eats because we don't have the time to catch butterflies for her. When we think it's time for her to eat, we'd usually hand feed her a mealworm. She even ate like once in two weeks before. We'd love to give her houseflies or BBs but we don't have those in culture here. I'm guessing our non-interference didn't stress her which is why she's still around. Ambient humidity and temperature here is quite high though.


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## Rick

Good deal on the molt.


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## ABbuggin

Sweet.  How long is she? She look pretty long to me.


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## Katnapper

Congrats on the succcessfull molt! Her shed sure is interesting too!


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## sufistic

ABbuggin said:


> Sweet.  How long is she? She look pretty long to me.








She's actually near to 11 cm if laid flat.


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## khabirun

Rick said:


> Good deal on the molt.


Yea man, was actually worried she couldn't molt properly here, but she did fine so thank god.



Katnapper said:


> Congrats on the succcessfull molt! Her shed sure is interesting too!


Thanks! and heck yea on the shedding part lol.


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## [email protected]

[SIZE=14pt]cool pic, what kind of cam setup are you useing?[/SIZE]


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## [email protected]

Did you get to see her molting? That would have been interesting to see how she got out of her old skin.


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## planetq

So awesome!

Good job handling her so far! Hopefully you will keep her through her whole life-

and hopefully in the future you guys can find a male for her!

Best of luck and I wish you guys all the success-


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## sbugir

Any idea on how close she is to adult?


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## sufistic

ArkBlue said:


> [SIZE=14pt]cool pic, what kind of cam setup are you useing?[/SIZE]


Thanks, just a cheap Lumix DSLR.



Chase said:


> Did you get to see her molting? That would have been interesting to see how she got out of her old skin.


We missed it, it would have been most interesting.



calarts_security said:


> So awesome!Good job handling her so far! Hopefully you will keep her through her whole life-
> 
> and hopefully in the future you guys can find a male for her!
> 
> Best of luck and I wish you guys all the success-


Thanks. We do have the intention to find her a mate but knowing how difficult that can be, we'd be satisfied with her laying an infertile ooth so that at least we'll have a clue what their ooth looks like.



lemmiwinks said:


> Any idea on how close she is to adult?


She's probably sub-adult or sub-sub adult now.


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## ZoeRipper

Man those are cool! I hope that eventually that sp makes it to the US.


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## C.way

amazing, wonderful species


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## Chien_Ming Lee

beautiful species .


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## MantidLord

Awesome pics. And best of luck. I thought she was sub-adult already. Amazing.


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## khabirun

Some detail pics of the _T.beieri_, please excuse the blurry pics cause I don't have any tripods and my shaking just doesn't help  .




















































Tbc..


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## khabirun

Cont'd


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## ismart

Awsome pic's!  The leafy projections are insane! :blink:


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## kamakiri

Wow...Thanks for the detailed shots.


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## Rick

Wow!


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## yen_saw

Rick said:


> Wow!


x 2!!

Nice shot Shaik  This 'Alien' should be on 'Men In Black III' :lol: One more molt to go? How big is the mantis now?


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## [email protected]

So cool!


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## khabirun

LOL MIB III, anyway she's approximately 10-12cm long, haven't really measured her head to toe (or abdomen in this case  ) . As for the molt part, I too think she has 1 more to go.


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## Nightberry

Wow! Very awsome mantis, I dident even know there where mantids that looked like that :blink: ! Awsome pictures!


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## Mantis Dictator

Wow, those pictures are truly amazing!! Are Toxo's hard to find the wild? I've heard they are quite rare, or is it just due to their extreme camouflage?

Thanks.


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## sufistic

Mantis dictator said:


> Wow, those pictures are truly amazing!! Are Toxo's hard to find the wild? I've heard they are quite rare, or is it just due to their extreme camouflage?
> 
> Thanks.


They're not rare, just very difficult to spot in the wild due to their extreme camouflage.


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## Christian

Rareness is a relative trait; compared to most other species of a habitat they are rare, though not the rarest of all. Camouflage is only partially the reason they are rarely found.

To avoid contradictions I should explain this: Species abundance curves in the tropics (of samples e.g.) show a few abundant species, a few that are not common and a lot which are uncommon (with only one specimen in a sample). This is best achieved with sampling procedures that are independent from the human eye, as we tend to have a biased "searching procedure". Such more or less unbiased procedures are light-trapping or fogging. Size also plays a role, as larger species are rarer than smaller ones. All this taken together gives us a good hint of what is rare and what not, irrespective of the human perspective. As such, Toxos are rare, as they never or only rarely show up in samples. I have examined two light trap samples over two weeks and 6 weeks respectively and only one Toxoderid was found (curiously in the two week sample). I also examined fogging samples over 12 years and no Toxoderid showed up so far. But these samples really gave me a hint what is common in that area and what not and it was rather contradicting to what humans tend to find when they search there.


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## revmdn

I don't know how I missed these photo, but they are awesome.


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## sufistic

Christian said:


> Rareness is a relative trait; compared to most other species of a habitat they are rare, though not the rarest of all. Camouflage is only partially the reason they are rarely found.
> 
> To avoid contradictions I should explain this: Species abundance curves in the tropics (of samples e.g.) show a few abundant species, a few that are not common and a lot which are uncommon (with only one specimen in a sample). This is best achieved with sampling procedures that are independent from the human eye, as we tend to have a biased "searching procedure". Such more or less unbiased procedures are light-trapping or fogging. Size also plays a role, as larger species are rarer than smaller ones. All this taken together gives us a good hint of what is rare and what not, irrespective of the human perspective. As such, Toxos are rare, as they never or only rarely show up in samples. I have examined two light trap samples over two weeks and 6 weeks respectively and only one Toxoderid was found (curiously in the two week sample). I also examined fogging samples over 12 years and no Toxoderid showed up so far. But these samples really gave me a hint what is common in that area and what not and it was rather contradicting to what humans tend to find when they search there.


Very interesting and thanks for sharing this info Christian. I've been told by the Orang Asli about 'seasons' like how they'll find a lot of certain species of mantids in one season, one of them being _Toxodera sp._ and how they can't find anything during the rest of the year. I'm beginning to think that certain tropical species also have a kind of diapause going on. For example, species such as _H. coronatus_ and _T. elegans_ can be found in abundance during December-April while species such as _D. lobata_ can be found all year roung according to the Orang Asli. I'm not sure about this though but what do you think?


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## Christian

This is true. But it's not due to diapause but to generation length and overlap. Most rainfores mantid species have two generations a year, some smaller ones even more, so that due to overlap it seems like they have no season, particularly if they are abundant and there is no severe dry season. Other species (mostly larger ones) have only one generation, and those are only found as adults at a certain time of the year. Generations are not discrete in the wet tropics, nevertheless there is a time when most specimens of a certain developmental stage can be found. Generations tend to be shorter in captivity due to better food supply and a lack of unfavorable climate conditions.

Sometimes a species may give us the impression as if there is only one generation a year, but in fact there are two, the second one being less abundant or isn't descending to heights where humans find them (or the collectors have other things to do). Most such things aren't studied in detail yet and probably will never be due to habitat loss.


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## sufistic

Christian said:


> This is true. But it's not due to diapause but to generation length and overlap. Most rainfores mantid species have two generations a year, some smaller ones even more, so that due to overlap it seems like they have no season, particularly if they are abundant and there is no severe dry season. Other species (mostly larger ones) have only one generation, and those are only found as adults at a certain time of the year. Generations are not discrete in the wet tropics, nevertheless there is a time when most specimens of a certain developmental stage can be found. Generations tend to be shorter in captivity due to better food supply and a lack of unfavorable climate conditions.
> 
> Sometimes a species may give us the impression as if there is only one generation a year, but in fact there are two, the second one being less abundant or isn't descending to heights where humans find them (or the collectors have other things to do). Most such things aren't studied in detail yet and probably will never be due to habitat loss.


This is very interesting! Thanks for sharing. What's happening in Malaysia and Indonesia is very sad. Singapore used to have _H. coronatus_ but now it's unheard of. This is most definitely due to deforestation. The same thing is happening in Malaysia and Indonesia although their nature reserves are much bigger than Singapore itself.

What's sadder is the fact that there are probably zero or a handful of breeders in these countries. Mantids get collected and sold to dealers who'd either sell or let their mantids die immediately so that they can sell expensive framed specimens. This is causing a rapid decline in mantis population in the wild. My only hope is that more S.E. Asians become interested in actually breeding these mantids so that at least they won't go extinct due to habitat loss.

I've met a Malaysian dealer who has hundreds of dead mantis specimens. He has a rack full of _Metallyticus sp._ and _Toxodera sp._ When I told him that his specimens are beautiful and perfect, he casually told me that he killed the mantids because the pinned specimens won't be as beautiful if the mantids die a natural death. That's just disgusting.


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## Christian

I know that dealer; I haven't met him personally, but some friends of mine. I also know that you have to kill the mantids in order to preserve them as they will rot if they die of natural causes. Of course, for someone who likes breeding, killing a mantid for simple collection purposes may sound sad, but I wish more regions would use their forests like this. The alternative would be paddy fields, timber harvesting or oil palm plantations, and this is not better. This kind of trade (together with fruit sampling etc.) is sustainable forest use. The amount of insects that are caught is nothing compared to what vanishes when the forest is cleared off, and, if done properly, it is a sustainable resource which is available every season. The only species which may be affected are some larger butterflies and it is good that some of those are protected (but there is an illegal trade). To avoid overexploitation is is sufficient to establish quotes and/or core areas where collecting is prohibited. Many regions could profit from insect collectors and breeders from overseas who visit those regions and bring money to the people. Reality is different, as always...


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## Ghozt

i want a pair... hit me up


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## hibiscusmile

It seems I missed most of the posts here, I think without that is the most beautiful mantis I have seen. Other than the one that looks like a feather, this one is tops!


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## MantidLord

Does anyone know what happened to it? I mean, even on the Asian forum, I haven't heard anything.


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## kitkat39

This is one of the most awesome species I have ever seen!!! It's too bad we haven't heard much about it afterwards..


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