# Florida bark mantis and Florida ant mantis



## yen_saw (Aug 12, 2008)

Here are few native mantis I received from Paul. It was unfortunate that the _M. maya _couldn't make it during shipment, but the bark mantis looks very lively. Finally i have my hands on this nice species again.





































Here is the dead _Mantoida maya_, this is the first time for me so not too sure if it is a F or M.











Too bad there aren't many documentation on this species. I received two pdf file from Dr. Yager on this species, which I believed you can be found in internet too. Anyone interested with the little document on this species welcome to PM me.


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## hibiscusmile (Aug 12, 2008)

They are nice Yen!


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## Andrew (Aug 12, 2008)

Love those _grisea_!


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## The_Asa (Aug 12, 2008)

Nice pics Yen :lol:


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## acerbity (Aug 12, 2008)

Wow the ant mantis is quite rare, such a shame it didn't make it!


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## riegs22 (Aug 12, 2008)

I like the coloring on the first pic.

They look like they can move fast, are they fast climbers?


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## Christian (Aug 12, 2008)

Wow, may I have the dead _Mantoida_ please? I need it for some work on mantid forelegs, but only if it has not hardened yet. The stuff I am interested in can't be seen in remoistered mantids, so a storage in alcohol would be best.

What a pity that noone breeds those ones.


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## mantidsandgeckos (Aug 13, 2008)

So sorry the m.maya died.


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## collinchang635 (Aug 13, 2008)

Cool mantids!  How did you get it to get on its back and open its wings? I have never seen my ant mantid do that before.


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## Peter Clausen (Aug 13, 2008)

I'm sure if Paul can find one, he can find more! I'm really amazed to see that species offered.

Yen's back!


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## mantidsandgeckos (Aug 13, 2008)

Peter said:


> I'm sure if Paul can find one, he can find more! I'm really amazed to see that species offered. Yen's back!


HE FOUND THOSE???so lucky!


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## Christian (Aug 13, 2008)

Well, I need a dead_ Mantoida_. Every chance to get one is welcome. Thanks.


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## yen_saw (Aug 13, 2008)

Thanks all. The bark mantis is larger than I thought. This species can move very fast, and then pause a moment trying to fool me, but will move again if being spotted. Both _G. grisea and M. maya_ appear to be nocturnal. All captured at night by Paul using night light. I talked to Paul recently, he is not going back to Florida catching mantis for now unfortunately. To capture both species at night really need a good pair of sharp looking eagle eyes!

@Christian, please check your PM.

Here is another pic of the dead _Mantoida maya_


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## acerbity (Aug 13, 2008)

yen_saw said:


> Thanks all. The bark mantis is larger than I thought. This species can move very fast, and then pause a moment trying to fool me, but will move again if being spotted. Both _G. grisea and M. maya_ appear to be nocturnal. All captured at night by Paul using night light. I talked to Paul recently, he is not going back to Florida catching mantis for now unfortunately. To capture both species at night really need a good pair of sharp looking eagle eyes!


What area exactly was he in?

I am all for going on a night trip in my own state to find them.

I would need a few pointers on using a light at night whilst searching the woods


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## Rick (Aug 13, 2008)

I like the bark mantids Yen. Maybe if you breed em I would be interested.


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## yen_saw (Aug 13, 2008)

acerbity said:


> What area exactly was he in?I am all for going on a night trip in my own state to find them.
> 
> I would need a few pointers on using a light at night whilst searching the woods


Paul collected the bugs in his folk's private land near swamp area at Okeechobee lake if I recall correctly. I wouldn't point out the exact location Paul doesn't want to over collect the specimen in that specific area and I respect that. You can always contact Paul to find out more details on collecting method.



Rick said:


> I like the bark mantids Yen. Maybe if you breed em I would be interested.


As per PM i will send you the adult for bugfest exhibition.


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## Birdfly (Aug 15, 2008)

Nice pics Yen of some unusual mantids, shame about _M maya_.


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## francisco (Sep 3, 2008)

Hello Yen,

It is nice to see you M maya in your hands, I am sure you will get more.

I had M maya AKA Little Yucatan Mantid, don't know why Yucatan as it is found in Florida, but anyways.

Collecting this specie is difficult and you need agility and speed, as they are mostly ground dwedlers and sometimes in low shrubs and vegetation.

You can find them on the trail during the day,but they disappeared with incredible speed as you get closer.

I was lucky enough to get 2 specimens, I was lucky enought to get 2 different mantids of the same specie in other words a male and a female.

So what you have there is a male Yen.

I hope Paul gets more, if someone can get them to reproduce in captivity it is you!!!!!

Good luck.

francisco


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## Christian (Sep 3, 2008)

_M. maya_ was described from Yucatan peninsula first (hence the name!) and found *afterwards* in Florida. Some author argued that it has to be still thoroughly checked if it's the same species.


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## yen_saw (Sep 7, 2008)

Sorry i have forgotten about this thread.... getting old  



Birdfly said:


> Nice pics Yen of some unusual mantids, shame about _M maya_.


Thanks Gary. Guess the maya species get stress up easily during shipment. No a good specimen for shipping.



francisco said:


> Hello Yen,It is nice to see you M maya in your hands, I am sure you will get more.
> 
> I had M maya AKA Little Yucatan Mantid, don't know why Yucatan as it is found in Florida, but anyways.
> 
> ...





Christian said:


> _M. maya_ was described from Yucatan peninsula first (hence the name!) and found *afterwards* in Florida. Some author argued that it has to be still thoroughly checked if it's the same species.


My guess is this species "hitch-hike" their way to America via transportation. If they are not native species originally.

So upon my trip back from Arizona, to my horror i lost an adult male bummer!! and another male has damaged eye :angry: 







Then i lost a female, she escape from the cage....gah! Has Kenny been napping while feeding the mantis?!?! :angry: 

But i have one adult female now. So despite small bud wing it is subadult stage for this species.
















Another subadult female (Now i am sure they are subadult)






So to avoid the eye damage problem i have moved the sole subadult male into a larger cage.











Feeding on lobster roach






Now i can only hope they can breed.


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## francisco (Sep 14, 2008)

Hello Yen,

You should have no problem mating these guys. I think they are really easy.

keep me posted when you get babies.

francisco


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## etb99 (Sep 15, 2008)

I really like the bark mantis, hope you manage to breed them. Any chance of an ooth reaching Europe?


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## collinchang635 (Sep 16, 2008)

I like the bark mantid. Hopefully you will manage to breed them. If you do, can you try to ship some ooths to Malaysia? How big does this species grow? Is it very aggressive?


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## Christian (Sep 16, 2008)

> can you try to ship some ooths to Malaysia?


As if there aren't enough native species there to be searched for... &lt;_&lt;


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## idolomantis (Sep 16, 2008)

Christian said:


> As if there aren't enough native species there to be searched for... &lt;_&lt;


that's true, in malaysia live the following mantis genuses:

Acromantis

Amantis

Amorphoscelis

Anaxarcha

Camelomantis

Deroplatys

Empusa

Euchomenella

Gonypeta

Hierodula

Humbertiella

Mantis

Paratoxodera

Rhombodera

Statilia

Tenodera

Theopropus

Toxodera

Tropidomantis

so get out and go look for them


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## Christian (Sep 16, 2008)

Oh, there are a lot more...


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## collinchang635 (Sep 16, 2008)

Unfortunately I don't really have the eyes for mantid hunting. They are too well camoflauged. There are only Ant mantids and Tropidomantids around my area. Although I will be going to Cameron Highlands which is famous for having orchids and dead leave mantids.


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## idolomantis (Sep 16, 2008)

I Like Mantis said:


> Unfortunately I don't really have the eyes for mantid hunting. They are too well camoflauged. There are only Ant mantids and Tropidomantids around my area. Although I will be going to Cameron Highlands which is famous for having orchids and dead leave mantids.


eyes are over-rated. use a giant net.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 16, 2008)

idolomantis said:


> eyes are over-rated. use a giant net.


Won't that damage the mantid?


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## idolomantis (Sep 16, 2008)

I Like Mantis said:


> Won't that damage the mantid?


ofcourse not.

catch them that way. or lure them with black light.

Ask rick or yen as they are pretty much the experts on this.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 17, 2008)

idolomantis said:


> ofcourse not.catch them that way. or lure them with black light.
> 
> Ask rick or yen as they are pretty much the experts on this.


Unfortunately I don't have a black light so I don't have much choice but to use the net.


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## yen_saw (Sep 17, 2008)

francisco said:


> Hello Yen,You should have no problem mating these guys. I think they are really easy.
> 
> keep me posted when you get babies.
> 
> francisco


Well the male doesn't last very long for me as adult. I still have a subadult, finger crossed.


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## yen_saw (Sep 26, 2008)

Took a long time before another male molted into adult. THe adult female has been "calling" for the past week i hope this male will settle down sooner and pair up with the 3-week-old adult female.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 26, 2008)

Hopefully you will succeed in mating this sp.


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## ABbuggin (Sep 26, 2008)

I'm sure he will.


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## idolomantis (Sep 26, 2008)

I Like Mantis said:


> Hopefully you will succeed in mating this sp.


If anyone can it's yen...

Dude ###### i ain't a cheerleader...


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## acerbity (Sep 26, 2008)

I had an adult male and female Gonatista Grisea last year and they wouldn't mate every time I paired them. The male ended up dying.


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## yen_saw (Oct 3, 2008)

Thanks for having confidence on me, but the truth is this must be a tough species to breed in captivity as i haven't seen any pic of mating pair in captivity before from the internet, or even a male hanging on a female's back ha! I will try my best though this is like another idolomantis for me. Except that i have only 1 adult pair and a subadult female left, mistakes cost me 1 subadult female and 2 adult males but I learn from it. Hopefully i will get a mating pic of this species to share with everyone here. The adult male is slightly more than a week old now, i will try my luck one evening this weekend as they seems to be active mainly at night. Promise to keep an update here, whether i fail or succeed.


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## yen_saw (Oct 6, 2008)

Tried to pair them up last weekend at evening as planned. I was afraid female will go straight to the male due to her aggresive nature but i was surprise with her tolerance. Male was wondering around her but never wanted to climb on her. So I let them together for the day. I checked on the cage again before going to sleep and saw the male is right on her back. Took couple of pics but they seems to be very nervous with my present so i let them go shortly.











The other female is still at subadult.... gosh this species take forever on the last molt. Been close to 2 months!


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## hibiscusmile (Oct 6, 2008)

The female is so beautiful, and she looks like she has on a gold ballgown!


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## etb99 (Oct 7, 2008)

Very nice species. Looks like you are getting there


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## yen_saw (Oct 8, 2008)

hibiscusmile said:


> The female is so beautiful, and she looks like she has on a gold ballgown!


Well my wife thinks they looks like roaches  :angry: 



etb99 said:


> Very nice species. Looks like you are getting there


Thanks. Hopefully she has been mated. Been seeing the male climbing up on her for the past few days, usually during evening time. I leave them alone but wonder how long wil the male keep his head intact


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## yen_saw (Oct 10, 2008)

The male "expired" just like another adult male that last only 2 weeks. Wonder why the subadult takes many weeks to mature but couldn't last very long as adult. Well i have no more male and not sure if they've mated. But a day before he die i saw him on the female's back again. The next day he seems lethagic and fall to the cage bottom, and the following day the female lays an ooth.


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## acerbity (Oct 10, 2008)

Seems like "getting the job done" took everything out of him.

If she laid an ooth the next day it sounds optimistic though!

The infertile Ooths my female laid were always much smaller so I would bet that one is good.


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## yen_saw (Oct 11, 2008)

I hope so acerbity. For now i can only wait. Thanks for the info.


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## Mantis Keeper (Oct 13, 2008)

It's odd that your males die so quickly, what are the temps and such you are keeping them at. I've had several male grisea and all of them that reached adulthood(mine usually died as nymphs during mismolts) lived for at least two months. And my female lived six months as adult. I also haven't had issues getting them to breed. I've tried twice and both times they began mating only a couple minutes after I placed them in the same enclosure. The process took about two hours, then I separated them again. However I hadn't even tried to mate them till both were adult for about three weeks.


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## yen_saw (Oct 13, 2008)

Hi Kirk, I kept both male and female around 85F/70%. They live a long time as subadult (about 1.5-2 months). Adult male last only 2-3 weeks but female seems to be robust and should live longer. Was the male you had from wild caught or captive bred?



Mantis Keeper said:


> However I hadn't even tried to mate them till both were adult for about three weeks.


As long as female is showing sign of calling she is ready to mate, regardless of how old she is as adult.


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## Mantis Keeper (Oct 19, 2008)

My male was wild caught at sub adult but I kept temperatures lower. Room temp was about 70-75 farenheight(I know the spelling is off but I don't feel like looking it up) with a heat lamp above the cage, but the lamp wasn't making a significant temp difference, and was always off at night. I do believe members of this species survive the winters here in florida as long as it doesn't freeze, and the lowered temperatures don't seem to bother them. And another funny story about when mine mated, the female actually attacked the male even though she was well fed, but with a few swipes of his claws and a quick pounce that sent them both rolling he managed to mount her and almost immediately began mating.


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## francisco (Oct 22, 2008)

Hello All,

A few years ago I got a few G grisea, I was succesful at breeding them and getting nymphs as well as a few ooth, that I send to Germany.

I think Insektus (Stephan) got some from me.

They are not hard to mate, the males are shy but they will climb on the females with no problem.

Like Yen said they are very tolerant of each other.

I am glad Yen is documenting his experience with them.

Good luck Yen. My female laid a total of 5 ooth.

I kept 2 and send 3 to Europe.

francisco


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## yen_saw (Oct 28, 2008)

FT and Kirk, thanks for the info.

The lone female is still feeding fine and has produced another oothecae only a week after the first, so i seldom feed her now and she hasn't produced any further ootheca since. If the first ooth hatched i will resume power feeding her again. the first ootheca is about 20-day old as of today.


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## Katnapper (Oct 28, 2008)

Thank you, Yen, for sharing the Gonatista grisea pics and information. I wish you much luck and success in hatching a hopefully fertile ooth!


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## yen_saw (Oct 29, 2008)

Katnapper said:


> Thank you, Yen, for sharing the Gonatista grisea pics and information. I wish you much luck and success in hatching a hopefully fertile ooth!


Thanks Katnapper, hopefully the next time i post it will be showing the hatchling, or nothing at all


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## acerbity (Oct 30, 2008)

Unfortunately this year I've only found one Grisea in my neighborhood, and it was dead and flat on the sidewalk  

I know there is a population in my neighborhood, but I only ever find the dead ones. When I sweep net or check tree bark I never see a thing. I wonder if they are way up in the trees &lt;_&lt; 

Edit: Here's a female I acquired last year, hopefully the early cold snap in Florida isn't killing them all off earlier in the year.


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## Mantis Keeper (Oct 30, 2008)

I think your on to something with your mention of them living in the tops of trees. The time that I found the most in the shortest period of searching was when I looked in a lot with freshly downed pine trees. I caught 7 in about twenty minutes that day, ended up keeping just one male and one female(the ones that looked the coolest, I favor the ones with green blotches). And of all the others I caught, or even just spotted they have been on trees, sometimes pine, sometimes oak. And the adults seem to usually be just barely in my reach or just out of my reach. Nymphs I find closer to the ground.


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## yen_saw (Nov 24, 2008)

I must have been away for too long, almost giving up finding this thread and start a new one.

The good news is the ootheca hatched so they did mate. Bad news is i haven't been hand feeding her (for some reason she is very picky with food) after her second ootheca so she appear to die from starvation. Bummer!! Been very busy and some of you know my situation well.

About 30-40 nymphs hatched. Here is some of them with the hatched out ooth.






Cute tiny little barky






One thing though, the hatchling appear to be kind of lethargic, i hope it is not because of the low humidity in my bug room.


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## The_Asa (Nov 24, 2008)

so cute! Congratulations on the hatching!


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## ABbuggin (Nov 24, 2008)

Nice! I bet your relieved.


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## Peter Clausen (Nov 25, 2008)

Very neat, Yen! I've never seen that species before. Florida is a long way from Oregon, I guess.

Thanks for finding the thread again!


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 25, 2008)

:lol: ha Yen, it's just that their little heads are too big for their bodies, can't move as well with all that weight!


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## Pelle (Nov 25, 2008)

Nice and congratulations!


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## acerbity (Nov 25, 2008)

You better pamper those babies!  

I'm not sure when they naturally hatch here in Florida, I'm guessing it is spring time, which is pretty warm. And Florida is always humid.


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## Kris Anderson (Mar 9, 2017)

yen_saw said:


> Here are few native mantis I received from Paul. It was unfortunate that the _M. maya _couldn't make it during shipment, but the bark mantis looks very lively. Finally i have my hands on this nice species again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_[SIZE=12pt]Mantoida maya[/SIZE]_[SIZE=12pt] Saussure &amp; Zehntner, 1894[/SIZE] female

[SIZE=12pt]Distal margin of terminal sternites straight in male, emarginated in female. [/SIZE]

“Praying Mantises of the United States and Canada”

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Praying-Mantises-of-the-United-States-and-Canada


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## Zeppy44 (Mar 9, 2017)

Great pics Kris. Wish I had an interest in mantis when I lived in Florida. Spent a lot of time around Canaveral not catching fish. LOL Could have been hunting mantis.


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## moldveien (Mar 25, 2017)

I hope those ant mantids make their way over across the atlantic, we got the asian ants here but those from florida had some wicked colours on 'em!


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## animalexplorer (Jul 6, 2017)

I've seen similar ones down in Costa Rica. They are quite fast.


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