Florida Laws

This is what the state of Florida has to say on importing exotic and non-Florida U.S. arthropods:

http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/pdf/G...tic-and-Non.pdf

And here is the page with more information and links.

http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/onestop/plt/entnempath.html

It seems to be targeted at breeders and sellers, but is vague on keeping. I've seen one flower mantis at the pet shop, but who knows. I'm going to email the contact they provide and see what he says.

I'll post the response when I get it.

Interesting. I'd love to see what the answer is. On that first link, it looks like they're only restricting orchid males...? What about the other kinds of mantises? And why do they use the common name? I'm going to call orchid mantises "white flower mantises" now! jk

Good luck on contacting the DOC. I tried a few yeasrs ago and got no reply at all. I would be interested if you get a reply.

If you ask and they say no, then they have your name and if they catch you it wont be easy to pull our the IDK card on them.

I KNOW that if I were on a jury and they guy had mantis's I would be hard pressed to give a hoot UNLESS they showed me where he asked and was told no.

Yeh, I know .. I would be a terrible jury member as far as the State is concerned.

* IDK = I didn't know *

Here we go again. Likely you will get the run around. Many of us have tried to get a straight answer but they just say we can't keep mantids but fail to provide it in writing.

Florids is very strict.

I know, because I just received my permit to buy and sell arthropods in this state. I have spoken to Florida's DOA directly, and while they are pretty liberal on arachnids (exotic Tarantulas OK, exotic Scorpions OK, exotic Wolf Spiders can only be kept under lock and key), the sad news is exotic mantids are forbidden, period.

I may legally sell Florida-native mantids to others, but I cannot legally import any non-native Florida mantid species.

Hope this clarifies,

Jack

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