# Carolina female's condition after mating.



## lancaster1313 (Feb 15, 2011)

I found a Carolina ooth in the park a while back, and raised 3 mantids to adult. I decided to let the two most mature ones mate yesterday. The male matured on 1/8/2011, and the female matured 2/3. I know the female wasn't quite 2 weeks old yet, but she let the male mate with no problems. They connected for about 6 hours.The thing is that her genital area is still gaping open since yesterday afternoon. I didn't notice this happen to the female that I bred 3 times last year. I can see something white showing that I will assume is from the male, and it is starting to dry out a bit. Can this female be rejecting the males sperm? I haven't seen this female trying to clean the area yet. The other female did alot of cleaning down there after mating, and had many offspring.


----------



## angelofdeathzz (Feb 15, 2011)

I talked to a guy who was breeding Idolos(as well as many other sp.) and he told me a similar story about his female Diabolica was mated for good long time but soon after the male got off of her she was pushing out the packet(seed), it was hanging from the female, so he took a pair of tweezers and gently tried to push it back up(I know kind of gross right) in her but that did not work. he told me she was not excepting it and therefore not pregnant, so he had to retry the mating several days later with another male and that time it worked.

Just thought I would let you know that little piece of information, hope it helps you?


----------



## lancaster1313 (Feb 15, 2011)

Aww man, I am not going to do any artificial insemination. :blink: But she might be able to wait until one of my captive bred males matures. Perhaps she doesnt want to accept the package because it was from her brother?  I didn't think that one could tell, immediately after mating, if a mantis was or wasn't pregnant. If there is a way to tell, let me know. :lol:


----------



## angelofdeathzz (Feb 15, 2011)

Well if the mantis rejects the seed packet I think that is a way to be 99% sure it didn't work out.  

The person that told me this has been breeding for over 25 yrs, and is a friend of Yen.


----------



## lancaster1313 (Feb 15, 2011)

The packet is still in her bottom, and I noticed that she tried to groom the area. The mantis had her abdomen with her foreleg, ready to groom, only her head was on the other side of a false plant stem. She appeared to be holding her abdomen and grooming the plant, :blink: what a silly mantis. :lol: I guess I will find out soon enough, if she drops the packet, or will she eat it?


----------



## dgerndt (Feb 15, 2011)

Ooo, this all sounds a little gross to me. lol


----------



## MantidLord (Feb 15, 2011)

What you said sounds normal to me. I've had that happen with many Iris oratoria females, where the back end stays "open" for a while. They laid perfectly fertile ooths that hatched. No problems and no artificial insemination.


----------



## angelofdeathzz (Feb 15, 2011)

He could be totally wrong. :blush: as I never have seen this happen with my own eyes. It's just what he told me so don't hold me to it.

just try'n to share what I heard, good, bad or wrong? :flowers:


----------



## MantidLord (Feb 15, 2011)

Well the best thing to do, like I believe you said, is to just mate her again when the time comes. I remember reading on the forum a long while ago about mantids rejecting spermatophore, however I don't think it was ever clarified or backed up.


----------



## hibiscusmile (Feb 15, 2011)

hibiscusmile says :blink:


----------



## Ntsees (Feb 15, 2011)

My experience is the same as Mantidlord. It happens to me often and I've come to this possible conclusion: the reason why the genitalia remains open is because the male has at lot of produced sperm because he hasn't been mated for some time (the production builds up). Therefore, the spermatophore is larger and the females genitalia remains open longer. If you were to mate the male again later on whens he's recuperated, you should notice that the spermatophore is smaller than before. I've tried this out with my mantids and that's the trend I see. I don't know about you, but whenever I see a large spermatophore and the female's genitalia doesn't close for a few days, I'm glad because that means the female is really stocked with stored sperm. I'm more concerned about when there is a small or no spermatophore (there might not be enough sperm). As for the female ejecting the spermatophore, all I have to say is "good luck" to the female lol because it's not that easy to get off(at least for _Iris oratoria_). The female usually gets rid of it a few days later after it's all dried up (those _Iris oratoria_ males sure are something when it comes to mating).


----------



## PhilinYuma (Feb 15, 2011)

Well, everyone gets good marks for observation; it's the part of the process that you can't see that has you confused. The male deposits his spermataphore or sperm sac into the female, and, in the case of mantids, it is ruptured (in some insects it is dissolved) and the sperm bearing fluid is released. The sperm find their way to the ovaries and the empty spermataphore and sometimes, some of the fluid, is pushed out. So when you see a sperm sac being "rejected", actually, ejected, you are usually seeing the result of a successful mating. I hope that that cheers you up!

Often, if you have a question like this and don't have any books on the subject, you can learn a lot by simply entering the appropriate words in any order in the Google search bar.


----------



## Rick (Feb 16, 2011)

It is all very normal. She is not "rejecting" the packet.


----------



## lancaster1313 (Feb 16, 2011)

This sounds pretty good to me.  That was his first mating, so he probably had a large packet. :lol: Her bottom is now closed and there is no sign of the packet laying around anywhere in her cup. How long should I wait before I can breed him again? I want to breed him with his other sister before he gets too old. :innocent:


----------



## lancaster1313 (Feb 16, 2011)

> Often, if you have a question like this and don't have any books on the subject, you can learn a lot by simply entering the appropriate words in any order in the Google search bar.


 I like googling well enough, but many times there is much more conflicting information found when googling, than there is on this forum.  It also helps when I get info about the subject that I intend to learn, without having to sort through the misinformation and ads to buy things that I have no interest in.


----------



## dgerndt (Feb 16, 2011)

likebugs said:


> I like googling well enough, but many times there is much more conflicting information found when googling, than there is on this forum.  It also helps when I get info about the subject that I intend to learn, without having to sort through the misinformation and ads to buy things that I have no interest in.


Ditto.


----------



## Rick (Feb 17, 2011)

likebugs said:


> I like googling well enough, but many times there is much more conflicting information found when googling, than there is on this forum.  It also helps when I get info about the subject that I intend to learn, without having to sort through the misinformation and ads to buy things that I have no interest in.


Yeah don't google mantis information, vast majority on the net is incorrect.

Should wait at least 24 hours to breed the male again.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Feb 17, 2011)

Likebugs, Deby, Rick, and anyone else who nodded in approval of the above sentiments about the internet:

Ouch! You haven't left yourself much room to maneuver, have you? What are your options?

The first, obviously, is to get a few entomology texts. Unfortunately, except for the Prete book which deals mostly with anatomical and physiological issues, there is almost nothing on mantids, although I have cited a couple of peripherally useful ones here, from time to time. Most members on this forum, though, I would guess, have no books on the subject and don't plan on getting any.

I think that you guys are implying that a lot of ignorant folks voice their mistaken opinions about mantids on the internet, and if you need the "straight dope", you should go to Mantid Forum. This simply isn't true. A number of us belong to several mantis forums; I don't think that we become more or less accurate according to which forum we are writing on. Also, of course, an appreciable amount of the "information", actually opinion, given on this site is inaccurate and contradictory; look no further than this thread. I recently made an egregious error in a post. I didn't catch it for several days, and no one in the meantime had even questioned it! I remember two members, Christian and Rob Byatt, who have both warned about the useless mantis information on the internet, (can you say Terra Typica?) discussing the name of a particular mantis that, as so often happens in systematics, had fallen prey to a misspelling. Rob gave the name from a fairly recent publication, but Christian trumped him with the "correct" (at least for now) name, available -- you guessed it -- only on the internet.

The internet is the greatest, free and readily accessible source of information that the world has ever known. Learn how to use it; it is worth the effort. In the case of mantis research.

Read with caution (though there are always exceptions), the views of :

Folks with incomplete mastery of their own language.

Folks who say LOL!!  , YEMV and IMHO a lot.

Folks who cite an unidentified friend or relative or "somewhere on the Internet" as their primary source of information.

Folks who say, "But what do I know?"

Folks who misspell the name of the mantis that they are discussing.

Listen to:

Anyone named Yen.

Information in Wikipedia, despite what they told you in high school. Sure, there are errors, but there are errors in Ehrmann, too, and you can't correct his!

Folks who give a rational explanation for their observation.

Folks who direct you to a reliable source to support their explanation.

Usually, though not in this case, anything that Rick has said twenty or thirty times over the years.

Scholarly articles

Textbooks published on line. The Prete Book is available in its entirety online if you look for it, as are chunks of one of the most famous entomology texts in the U.S. by Chapman, see here: http://books.google....epage&amp;q&amp;f=false

There, I feel better now. Just remember:


----------



## lancaster1313 (Feb 17, 2011)

Well, I guess some of us have googled deeper than others.Sometimes it is nice to just wait for Phil to explain in exact terms, how googling is done, while he provides a great and helpful link on the subject at hand. B) I am very happy with the results that I get when I post my questions and concerns in this forum. I even get to squeeze in some time to play with, and care for my kid. :lol: 

Now, I better get off the computer in a few minutes, or we will be late for karate class.


----------



## dgerndt (Feb 18, 2011)

*bookmarks page* Thanks, Phil!


----------



## PhilinYuma (Feb 18, 2011)

likebugs said:


> Well, I guess some of us have googled deeper than others. *Sometimes it is nice to just wait for Phil to explain in exact terms*, how googling is done, while he provides a great and helpful link on the subject at hand. B) I am very happy with the results that I get when I post my questions and concerns in this forum. I even get to squeeze in some time to play with, and care for my kid. :lol: Now, I better get off the computer in a few minutes, or we will be late for karate class.


Maybe, but I hear that the old guy is getting well past his prime. His eyesight is shot, and they say that he argues with his dog a lot. Nothing personal against the old fart fellow, of course, but you might want to check some of his "facts" from time to time ("Roxanne's ground mantis"? Where did that come from?) and start looking around for a replacement.


----------



## dgerndt (Feb 19, 2011)

PhilinYuma said:


> Maybe, but I hear that the old guy is getting well past his prime. His eyesight is shot, and they say that he argues with his dog a lot. Nothing personal against the old fart fellow, of course, but you might want to check some of his "facts" from time to time ("Roxanne's ground mantis"? Where did that come from?) and start looking around for a replacement.


It's okay, I'm sure we could all chip in a buy you a new pair of glasses.  







Sorry, this was quite off topic.


----------



## lancaster1313 (Mar 12, 2011)

Update:

Both sisters were mated by the same male and laid 2 great looking oothecae each, so far.

Yesterday, I let my daughter reintroduce the same male with the first female that he mated. He hopped right on and connected for his usual 6 hours. :lol: He is very consistent, and the female is still showing off her spermatophore today.


----------



## lancaster1313 (Mar 13, 2011)

He is mating with the other sister now, I am pleased to note that he looks like he will do the usual 6 hours because he seems to have lost many of his motor skills. I usually would have given him more time before using him again, but his condition is deteriorating quickly.

That male mantis can barely walk, and keeps falling off of plants and other things. He was real restless and spending alot of time stumbling around and falling on his back.

I am surprised that when I put him on the female today, she slapped him a couple of times, but he whacked her with his antennae and connected.  It has been almost 5 hours and he hasn't fallen off of her yet. :lol: I am just surprised that the seemingly "at death's door" male can mate perfectly fine.  I will be looking to see if his spermatophore is smaller than the previous one that he inserted into the other female on 3/11.


----------



## Termite48 (Sep 11, 2011)

There is one web site written by a lady and it is regarding insects. In it she states more than once that there is a myth that female mantids often consume their mates during or after mating. Many have read this web site's postings and have gone away either misinformed, confused, or as in my case, laughing. Listen to Phil, though, but search with caution, consider the sources, and always question any information that goes against what the majority in the field of study say.


----------

