# Mantid dissapearing act.



## Adamski (Apr 15, 2005)

I had ten african mantids one by one they died either by eating eachother or dying from hunger. in the end the strongest one was left. I went on holiday and left my mam to looking after the last mantid and gave her simple clear instructions; 'give the mantid two small crickets after two days make sure it has ate them then put one cricket in wait two more days and put two in then i will be back to carry on the feeding'. I asked her to tell me what she was going to do fo the mantid and shetold me then i showed her the box of tiny brown micro crickets and told her they were the ones to give it. Everything seemed okay until i got back off a week holiday. I walked into my room and looked in the tank and all i could see was crickets after crickets on the mantid's branches, about 20-30 in with the mantid(the mantid had managed to escape the onslaught of crickets by hiding on the net roof only the mantid had lost rear leg to the cricket attack. Immedeatley i got the crickets out of the tank made sure there where none left gave the tank a spray checked the mantids stub leg and sprayed it with water. Tha tnight something strange happened. In the morning i got out of bed and went over to the tank to check on the mantid. It Had completely dissapeared. I checked the tank for any escape holes checked the floor as the mantid could have fallin when molting but even when i seived the fine flooring no sign of my mantid but i found a small larvae but way to small to have eaten a hole mantid.(the mantid was a nymph on its 3rd instar). It had completely dissapeared and this was about 1-2years ago and until three weeks ago i haven't had any mantids.


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## Leah (Apr 18, 2005)

THis is a very common thing to happen. The mantid is caught at a weak point (whether molting, having been injured, falling, etc) and falls to the bottom where any feeders in the container (especially crickets) will eat it.

Crickets are absolutely notorious for this, and sometimes cause more sensitive mantids (like dead leafs) to fall, and then kill them..


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