# What are Considered Poisonous Bugs?



## Wallace Grover (Sep 30, 2010)

Which bugs should I definitely not be feeding my mantis? (I want her to get some variety, but so far I've only been feeding grasshoppers)

PS: Can a mantis eat itself to death?


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 30, 2010)

They can have a lot of things, they say not ants, or centipeedes or such, but most other things should be ok. but no ugly bugs


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## Wallace Grover (Sep 30, 2010)

I'm guessing no bees or spiders either?


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 30, 2010)

No, mine like both, just smash mouth of bees first.


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## PhilinYuma (Sep 30, 2010)

Wallace Grover said:


> I'm guessing no bees or spiders either?


I've fed thousands (yep, no exaggeration!) of unmutilated honey bees without incident, except for one that stung me in the butt (my fault, sorry, bee). I purposely keep spiders in my bug room to control fly-away flies and provide emergency food or a treat for the mantids. Fear not! Mantids are killing machines! Incidentally, I very much doubt if they can tell the difference between, say, a bluebottle fly and a bee.


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## PeterF (Sep 30, 2010)

I am curious about things that are actually poisonous for them to eat. Not so much venomous and dangerous.


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## LauraMG (Sep 30, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> I am curious about things that are actually poisonous for them to eat. Not so much venomous and dangerous.


If they aren't supposed to eat it, they'll start to dig in and drop it.


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## kitkat39 (Sep 30, 2010)

I'm gonna guess those giant hornets or predatory wasps that are smarter than usual as they also have good eye sight and could capitalize and kill with a single mistake made by the mantis. Perhaps centipedes as well.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 1, 2010)

kitkat39 said:


> I'm gonna guess those giant hornets or predatory wasps that are smarter than usual as they also have good eye sight and could capitalize and kill with a single mistake made by the mantis. Perhaps centipedes as well.


Please? Please can I be a testy old man for a minute? Thanks, I owe you one.






I see guys (and gals, of course!) on here who play video games and know all about them including the programming language. I see guys (ditto) who are interested in music and know all about the advantages of a tube amplifier over a transistor one (if any) but when it comes to mantids, that really need knowledge just to be kept alive, you know diddly squat and substitute wild guesses for fact. And when I try to set anyone straight, it's Old Phil writing another paragraph (I see you, Zoe!)

The largest American "hornet" (actually a wasp, c.f.) is the bald faced hornet. The adults live on plant nectar, like the tarantula killer wasp, and catch and chew up helpless prey, caterpillars and grubs are great, for the kids back home. Human's are among the very few critters that get into unprofitable fights, and I see no reason why this wasp would risk its life to kill a mantis, except in most unusual circumstances. There are many recorded instances, though, of mantids preying on smaller wasps in the wild The Giant Japanese Hornet preys almost exclusively on social bees, kills them all and carries off the grubs as food for its own young.

Now let's do this "poisonous insect" thing. Insects/arthropods use toxins either as an aid to predation or a defense. The centipede has modified forelegs ("forcipules" right, Orin?) that secrete a poison that cripples prey as large as small rodents, Wasps have venom sacs connected to their stings (bees generally use theirs in defense and their barbed stings can generally be pulled out of an insect, but not a mammal). These traits are advantageous for predators and are selected for. 

Defensive toxins are usually more generalized and found in the tissues, though the centipede, that you also mentioned, can secrete hydrogen cyanide. Being poisonous is _not _a defense, though, since the noxious insect is often dead or critically injured by the time it is spat out, unless predators can detect that an insect is noxious, usually by a color scheme, red, yellow and black, which only works on those predators, usually birds and reptiles, that have color vision. After eating one insect and finding it noxious, birds will tend to avoid insects with red, yellow, black coloration even if the wearer is not noxious (Batesian mimicry. Didn't we do this fairly recently?). Some mammals and insects like mantids do not recognize this color scheme and since they don't prey significantly on such "aposematic" species, any gene mutation that would make an insect toxic to mantids is not selected for, which is why they can eat stink bugs and monarch butterflies, warning coloration and all.

O.K. That's it. Lots of folks do very nicely without knowing anything about insects. Some folks drive a car without knowing how a fuel injection system works, but if you keep insects and don't have a good insect repair man, it's a good idea to teach yourself some of the basics, and it's not very hard.


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## Rick (Oct 1, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> I've fed thousands (yep, no exaggeration!) of unmutilated honey bees without incident, except for one that stung me in the butt (my fault, sorry, bee). I purposely keep spiders in my bug room to control fly-away flies and provide emergency food or a treat for the mantids. Fear not! Mantids are killing machines! Incidentally, I very much doubt if they can tell the difference between, say, a bluebottle fly and a bee.


Oh Phil I hope you have stopped the practice of using honey bees. Their numbers are declining severely and we need each and every one.

To the original poster, stay away from the obvious. You would be surprised at what they can eat. They know what they can and cannot eat.


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## Wallace Grover (Oct 1, 2010)

Hmm, I may try feeding him a moth then graduate to a wasp....


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## MrPitseleh (Oct 1, 2010)

I was wondering about this quite a bit now that I look down inside plants rather than just the surface I have started seeing quit a few bugs I'm unfamiliar with and I think it would be really helpful to new people if a topic was pinned with just pictures on poisonous bugs and things to not feed a mantis in it.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 1, 2010)

Rick said:


> *Oh Phil I hope you have stopped the practice of using honey bees. Their numbers are declining severely and we need each and every one*.
> 
> To the original poster, stay away from the obvious. You would be surprised at what they can eat. They know what they can and cannot eat.


One more time Rick!  Arizona is one of the states _*not*_ threatened by colony collapse disorder! We have honey bees everywhere. The only thing that pisses me off is to find flowering bushes surrounded by dead bees because someone sprayed with insecticide! Buy AZ honey!

MrPitseleh: "I think that it would be really helpful to new people if a topic was pinned with just pictures on poisonous bugs and things to feed a mantis in it."

Try reading my last post in this thread again, son. Take yr time. Have a snacky half way through. Raisins are good.


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## PeterF (Oct 2, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> One more time Rick!  Arizona is one of the states _*not*_ threatened by colony collapse disorder! We have honey bees everywhere. The only thing that pisses me off is to find flowering bushes surrounded by dead bees because someone sprayed with insecticide! Buy AZ honey!
> 
> MrPitseleh: "I think that it would be really helpful to new people if a topic was pinned with just pictures on poisonous bugs and things to feed a mantis in it."
> 
> Try reading my last post in this thread again, son. Take yr time. Have a snacky half way through. Raisins are good.


Phil, to be fair to MrPitseleh, your post wasn't that helpful.

For starters, millipedes, not centipedes (to my limited knowledge), secrete hydrogen cyanide as a defense.

My reading, and rereading, of your post was that it was wandering. It has many interesting and helpful points, but what it ignores is the main points.

It does not properly address the possibility of hymenoptera stinging in defense. Which they do, I don't think that is up for debate.

"I see no reason why this wasp would risk its life to kill a mantis, except in most unusual circumstances."

If an owner puts a wasp in the cage with a mantid then we can accept that the wasp is in danger. Now, it may be that the mantid can capture and incapacitate the wasp with no chance at all of being stung. I find it unlikely that a mantid is 100% safe in that situation and would not risk it myself.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that a wasp flying around a cage is going to take it upon itself to fly over and sting the mantid. But I suspect many others feel as I do that the wasp may sting the mantid when the mantid attacks it.

If you had any specific reason that the mantid is safe from a wasp's defensive sting you did not present it clearly.

The same goes for poisonous/noxious prey. If you meant to imply that mantids are either not susceptible to poisonous prey at all, ever, of any type, or that they will simply not eat it if they catch it, then you did not make that clear. You do say that they can eat stink bugs and monarch butterflies. Are we intended to extrapolate that to all poisonous/noxious prey?

I suspect that there is a disconnect between what you were thinking and what actually made it to the post. That is hardly MrPitseleh's fault. A simple statement like "there are no defensive chemicals in insects that are dangerous to a mantid" (if that is true) would have been more helpful than a bunch of disjointed facts that may or may not lead us to conclude that you are trying to imply that mantids can eat anything (or won't eat anything they shouldn't).

I honestly mean no disrespect, I enjoy your posts very much. I do not however enjoy your snide comment to MrPitseleh in light of the fact that his confusion is not helped by the disorganized nature of your post.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 2, 2010)

Lots of good points, Peter F. I just went back and reread my post, and the second use of "centipede" was, of course, a typo for millipede.

I guess that the short answer is that I know of no insect that is noxious to mantids except for trail making ants, for the reasons that I explained at length because I thought, in my innocence, that they were interesting. Of course, the occasional mantid can be injured by a sting or a bite from a hymenopterous insect, but their capture of bees and wasps in the wild has been well documented. The fact that you can be involved in a fatal accident any time that you enter a car does not prevent most of us from entering one. I have written very much the same post on at least two previous occasions (though this will definitely be my last!), and added other factors that i missed out this time that indicate why being noxious to vertebrate predators is a much more useful survival trait than being noxious to other insects and how insects see, so it may have been a bit more disjointed than previously. And after all that, to be asked to go out and take pix (surely not steal copyright ones?) to make life nice and easy for someone who is not prepared, apparently, to do any work themselves,, I became more irritated than perhaps was good for me.

But how about you, Peter? You seem to have a good idea of how a real article of this kind should be written, so go to it! I shall be watching this thread with interest!


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## kitkat39 (Oct 2, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Please? Please can I be a testy old man for a minute? Thanks, I owe you one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh Phil.. so much anger in your post. But if it feels good to belittle me by taking little shots at me then feel free to write your paragraphs as long as it's to help inform others and not just to get back at me. I wrote that last post some time in the A.M. right before bed time and the first things that popped into my head were things that I've seen kill mantis. I obviously have not spent the many many many hours reading up on every little thing as you have to prove your points. I write my opinions and that's what they are, opinions. Take them or leave them. I see others write opinions that are just as bad as mine or have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, and I haven't seen the forum cop in you come out and attack them, so I have obviously done something to bring out that "testy old man" state out of you. Whatever that is that has brought that out of you, I sincerely apologize.

I still think that after what I've seen, I still would not feed my mantises any fully functional wasps, hornets, or centipedes. You are more than welcome to if that makes you happy.


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## Orin (Oct 2, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> For starters, millipedes, not centipedes (to my limited knowledge), secrete hydrogen cyanide as a defense.
> 
> If you had any specific reason that the mantid is safe from a wasp's defensive sting you did not present it clearly.


Only the polydesmid (flat) millipedes can emit hydrogen cyanide.

I've never used wasps or bees since it seems like a lot of extra work and personal peril but I've been told by a few people I believe that in practice they present no danger to appropriately sized mantids.


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## Findarato (Oct 2, 2010)

I once caught a centipede (local species here, about 5 cm), but it emitted a rather unpleasant stench (something chemical) from the small container I kept it in, so I did not feed it to my mantis. Probably she would not have liked it anyway.

Bees I rather let live outside, and wasps I don't like to handle myself, I don't trust their abrupt movements. So I stick with occasional house flies and big moths from our staircase, or crickets.


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## Wallace Grover (Oct 2, 2010)

Are vertebrates (i.e pinkies, baby frogs and lizards, etc) bad for mantids?


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## LauraMG (Oct 2, 2010)

Wallace Grover said:


> Are vertebrates (i.e pinkies, baby frogs and lizards, etc) bad for mantids?


http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2009/09/mantis-catches-hummingbird-pic.html

They'll eat what they can and leave the rest. Thought you might find this pic interesting! I'm using it in my informative speech about mantids!


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## Wallace Grover (Oct 2, 2010)

Wow, I knew there have been cases of them catching birds but I never really realized the true ratio of size between what they can catch....


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## MrPitseleh (Oct 2, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> And after all that, to be asked to go out and take pix (surely not steal copyright ones?) to make life nice and easy for someone who is not prepared, apparently, to do any work themselves,, I became more irritated than perhaps was good for me.


Sorry I didn't mean to irritate anyone it was just a suggestion and I don't know anything about copyright stealing rules. I also ment to do some of the work myself like maybe everyone that did have a bug they were curious about could take a picture and put it up in one thread asking about it. I would never even think to ask that much of the people here to go out and take pictures of all the interesting bugs for me. Sorry I even made the comment to begin with won't happen again.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 2, 2010)

MrPitseleh: I was much less mad at you personally than at the trend that I have seen since I have been here, about two years, of folks, often but not always newcomers, who ask questions like, "how many ooths will my fertile Chinese mantis lay?" Of course, no one knows the answer to this, though sometimes an experienced and kindly soul like Ismart will offer an informed guess, but the enquirer _never _reports how many ooths their mantis actually laid. I don't mind being a grumpy old man on occasion, but please don't take it personally. Poor Rick, has been at this on a daily basis for years, repeating answers to the same questions on something like a three month rotation. When I become King (and I understand that that is in the works) I shall present him with the Royal Medal (equivalent to the Presidential Medal only bigger and shinier) for "Services to the Mantis Community Beyond the Call of Duty."

By all means post pix of insects that you discover are unpalatable to mantids and, more importantly, any ill effects that the mantids might suffer. Try to identify the insect on the internet, first, though, using something like www.bugguide.net or www.insectidentification.org. Your information may prove very useful.

Remember, though, if you believe in evolution, noxious defensive chemicals only work if they prevent predators from attacking, like the centip millipede or bombardier beetle or if a combination of noxiousness and aposematic coloration will stop the predator with color vision from making more than one attempt. While an insect might be accidentally harmful to a mantis, who appears to be color blind, its toxin will have no advantageous effect on the species' survival.

And finally, raisins really are a tasty and healthful snack. I think that I shall have some now, before heading out!

Take care!


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