# Can mantids eat too much?



## hawk 1sr (Jul 21, 2010)

My baby mantis, (about 3 weeks i think) is really really plump. I stopped feeding her (i think its a female) just today. But my question is, is it possible for them to eat too much and explode?


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## massaman (Jul 21, 2010)

I heard the could burst but some people would refute that but either they do or they know when they had enough!


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## Ntsees (Jul 21, 2010)

hawk 1sr said:


> My baby mantis, (about 3 weeks i think) is really really plump. I stopped feeding her (i think its a female) just today. But my question is, is it possible for them to eat too much and explode?


I haven't had that happen to me before. My objective is that once a young mantid is fat (I try not to get it to be overly plump), I stop feeding it until it molts. However, if it slims down a bit over the days, then I feed it a little bit more.

The only exceptions are the adults. I want ooths, and so I feed the females until they can no longer eat.


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## Rick (Jul 21, 2010)

I think bursting is very unlikely. If the mantis is very, very fat hold off a few days before feeding again.


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## Orin (Jul 22, 2010)

Nymphs can't overeat but adult females are capable. Bursting is a bit of an exaggeration.


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## ismart (Jul 23, 2010)

Sometimes nymphs, and or adults, can eat to the point of throwing up. At least that is what i have witnessed on a quite a few occasions. I have had adult females, that have eaten to a point where there abdominal segments meet, Start to split open, they can no longer expand there abdomens any further. Thus oozing blood guts. This happens most with eggbound females. The only female i have ever seen explode is when i dropped one on the floor. She was so fat her abdomen ruptured!  I felt so bad!


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## Vore (Jul 23, 2010)

Really? That's sick. So they're gluttons? Will they eat 'til they burst or do they stop themselves when they're full?


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## Woodbox (Jul 23, 2010)

Mine stop when full. I feed mine till they get full and then wait 3-4 days and do it again. (L6-7 stagmomantis sp.) You will notice they eat slower and slower the fuller they get. Then they drop what is left and clean their arms and head.


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## ismart (Jul 23, 2010)

Vore said:


> Really? That's sick. So they're gluttons? Will they eat 'til they burst or do they stop themselves when they're full?


They don't eat till they burst. They usually drop what there eating when they are full. I'm just speaking of very rare occurrences.


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## lancaster1313 (Jul 23, 2010)

I have fed my Chinese mantids fat for the first time. I was also wondering about the eating thierselves to death. My biggest are L5, and the girls didn't seem Like they wanted to stop and drop. I am really careful when disturbing them in any way, like to mist thier containers, so they won't fall. They seem to move slower now that they are fat, and I am glad. I have added another layer of paper towels to the bottom of thier containers, just in case a fall occurs.


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## novaz (Aug 19, 2010)

good thread

my Chinese seems to self regulate I dropped a spider and a cricket in last night the spider was eatern straight away this morning half of the cricket is on the floor of the tank .


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## katz640 (Aug 20, 2010)

Well, I had this one incident where my dad was feeding one of my male mantises that we caught from my backyard. He was feeding him crickets and exclaimed, "Hey, look! He keeps killing them." so he kept putting more of them in there, and my mantis ended up eating a ton of crickets. After that, he was very unresponsive, as if he turned into a vegetable. It seemed like he was alive, but he wouldn't move or anything. About a day or so later, his head was chewed off by crickets (I was new to the whole mantis thing so I had no idea that they would do that) -- but I think that poor Satch was long gone before that happened. Satch was a very skinny mantis to begin with, though and I can't tell for sure if it was overeating that killed him (however it seems like it did).


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