Idolomantis diabolica female

I am so pleased at how successful I have been with Idolomantis diabolica! My Female molted to sub adult at around 1am in the morning. I stayed up and watched the whole thing and did a timelapse of the entire process! This female is almost twice the size of the male Idolos and she finally caught up to them so hopefully they take longer than her to molt so breeding might be possible! I observed that the molt from L7 to L8 takes a very long time compared to all the other molts so far. Since female Idolomantis have an extra molt they usually take much longer to mature. The males almost always molt to maturity before the females which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to breed this species. Hopefully this girl will speed up her growth and molt to adulthood before the males do! I am so amazed at her size! She even makes the adult Rhombodera stalli look small! Welcome to Sub adult big girl! I never get tired of watching them molt no matter how many times I have observed it! Such a spectacular event to witniss!

Very nice!

So happy for you MantisMatt14! One more molt to go!!! Feed her lots. My femle molted to adult 5 weeks after her subadult shed so she molted pretty fast..

idologrl said:

So happy for you MantisMatt14! One more molt to go!!! Feed her lots. My femle molted to adult 5 weeks after her subadult shed so she molted pretty fast..

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How fast did she start to eat again? She molted 2 days ago and she doe s not want to eat yet. How long did it take yours to start eating again?

this is the one with the 3 inch shield you were telling me bout?

MantisMatt14 said:

How fast did she start to eat again? She molted 2 days ago and she doe s not want to eat yet. How long did it take yours to start eating again?

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The later the instar the longer it takes for them to start eating. My one girl didn't starte eating again for almost a week..

Idologrl,

Awesome thanks! She ate 3 blue bottle flies today with me watching!

Congrats...

Congrats thanks for sharing the molt, very interesting. So far the only molting I've seen much of is when some of my nymphs get stuck. Typically though I just get to see the empty exoskeleton.

Glad your having such luck with your Idolos.

CosbyArt said:

Congrats thanks for sharing the molt, very interesting. So far the only molting I've seen much of is when some of my nymphs get stuck. Typically though I just get to see the empty exoskeleton.

Glad your having such luck with your Idolos.

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DrMantisToboggan said:

Very nice!

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dmina said:

Congrats...

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Thanks! Right now I have an adult male and a sub adult male and female. The sub adult male is larger than the adult male. The sub adult female already towers over them! The 2 sub adults are synced up perfectly and both the male and female have swollen wing buds! I Can not wait to see them as adults! I will post a thread on my Idolos molting and just pics of them. Good luck!