P. Wahlbnergii mating, help!

Hello,

we have a P. Wahlbergii female for a while now, she turned adult at the end of January, so she is adult for like 5 weeks now. Not laid an ooth yet (she is real fat).

Today I received an adult male, not sure how old he is (also, seller guaranteed it was a wahlbergii).

We wanted to let them mate today, but the male just didn't notice her. He totally ignored her, even when his anteannas touched the female, he didn't do anything. The female was quite 'aggressive' (turns around to see what happens) while she ate quite alot. Her abdomen is really big now.

Now we got some questions:

What should we do? Wait a few days? They are in different cages now, next to each other (they were outside on my desk when we tried to mate them). As it looked today, the male ignores about anything; a fly walked past him and he didn't see it! I hope it doesn't stay this way and he just keeps ignoring her...

And are they 100% sure Wahlbergii? The male is ALOT smaller then the female.

Here are some pics of the female (old, taken when she just turned adult. Abdomen really fat now):





Here are some pics of the male:





Size comparison (not that great shot):



So, please give us some information

Your wahlbergii female looks like an ocellata to me, but to be sure you'd best ask Christian or Rob.

The male may be recovering from shipping shock, so it's best to mate him a few days after you recieve him! I know the feeling of wanting to mate them right away, but it's best to wait so he can calm down and get a better "eyesight". Excited or stressed mantids don't seem to notice any movement around them for a day or two.

The male does look smaller in comparison to the female, but I've never seen a wahlbergii male next a female so I can't be sure. In ocellata there isn't much of a difference, hopefully you don't have cross species but just a really small male or a really big female.

Good luck with your wahlbergii!

It's best to put him in the cage with the female, or the other way around, and leave them together for a while. They should get down to business when it starts to get dark. As long as your female is well fed, you shouldn't have to worry much about cannibalism.

These two species are so similar, I'm sure it's possible to cross breed the two. Especially with someone inexperience like myself, I don't know how to tell the difference between the two specie.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Your wahlbergii female looks like an ocellata to me, but to be sure you'd best ask Christian or Rob.

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I checked http://www.mantisphotos.com/comparingpseudo.htm again and actually I'm quite sure she's a Wahlbergii. Her shoulders blade are really big and detailed (maybe I should get another pic) and she is quite big in size! The circle on her wings is also very round unlike the oceletta (again, like they said on the site)

The male may be recovering from shipping shock, so it's best to mate him a few days after you recieve him! I know the feeling of wanting to mate them right away, but it's best to wait so he can calm down and get a better "eyesight". Excited or stressed mantids don't seem to notice any movement around them for a day or two.

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Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do I put the male in a small faunabox again and put a lamp on him so he can warm up nicely.

It's best to put him in the cage with the female, or the other way around, and leave them together for a while. They should get down to business when it starts to get dark. As long as your female is well fed, you shouldn't have to worry much about cannibalism.

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That's what I'm scared of Took a while to find me a male (and he wasn't that cheap money wise ) so I want to be very careful. The female is eating even though she is full as heck! I'm sure she wants to eat the male too if she sees him wandering..

Here's a new picture for size comparison. I think you can see better now that it's a female Wahlbergii, and the size difference. Still not 100% sure bout the male. Maybe the seller thought it was a Wahlbergii but I got a ocellata now..which would suck.



I tried putting them together again today, but still the male didn't do anything. Didn't notice any movement either.. and his antennas didn't 'point' to the female either..while the female almost wanted to grab him when she turned around...

Neither are P. occelata.

You need to feed the female ALOT more mate, she is way too thin. The females of this species really do not like to be interfered with in any way, by neither man nor mantis

Make sure you introduce the female to the male.

Rob Byatt said:

Neither are P. occelata.You need to feed the female ALOT more mate, she is way too thin. The females of this species really do not like to be interfered with in any way, by neither man nor mantis

Make sure you introduce the female to the male.

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Good, so I should be able to breed them

I'm afraid to feed the female more.. some pics are posted are old, here are some from a few minutes ago. They are ######, I couldn't focus... Her adbomen is really 'shiny' because it stretched so much.. really looks like she will pop if I give her more And she has a bit trouble with walking too it seems, because she's heavy!



Best pic I could get:



The main thing I'm worried about is the male, as he doesnt even see a fly or mealworm walking past him... and not noticing the female at all..

Ouch...Unfortunately, I think your male is nearing the end of his life. That has happened to me a couple of times. The male slows down, stops eating, and doesn't notice anything. Dies a few days afterwards.

Not all males are going to jump on right away. Feed the female until she rejects food, and put her together with the male. Like I said before, leave them together and they should get down to business when it starts to get dark. This is what worked for me when I was having the same problem.

wait a couple of days, if the male dies you may send a email to the guy who sold you.

and keep trying mate B)

asdsdf said:

Ouch...Unfortunately, I think your male is nearing the end of his life. That has happened to me a couple of times. The male slows down, stops eating, and doesn't notice anything. Dies a few days afterwards.

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Well, he's still very active and fast! Sometimes he runs pretty fast across my desk. And yesterday, he even had a short flight from my gf's hand to my shirt So, I really hope he is not dying..

Giosan said:

Well, he's still very active and fast! Sometimes he runs pretty fast across my desk. And yesterday, he even had a short flight from my gf's hand to my shirt So, I really hope he is not dying..

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He definately isn't dying. Dying males don't usually run fast or fly.

Okay, good for you.

that male is very small compared to her. anyway... i completely empathise with the original poster. i had almost the exact same problem recently but with p.ocellata. i had a female that moulted to adult mid december, and a male that moulted to adult a bit more recently. however, when introduced, the male showed absolutely no interest in the female. he would occasionally look at her, and do that arm thing p.wahlbergi and ocellata sometimes do (for you uk kids, a bit like in gladiators when they had to race using that skytrack thing, and cycle using their arms? for the rest of the world kids, a bit like power a bicycle with your arms not your legs. but in slow motion, and more jerky), and then just slouch off somewhere else. a couple of times he even got distracted by his own shadow when doing the arm thing. silly bugger. more than once he simply walked over her, took absolutely no notice. he wouldn't even pay attention to food. same with the female, she would occasionally watch the food go past but never go for it. i tried everyday to introduce them and/or feed them, got nothing.

so i made up a new container, large enough to house them both, and put the male in. i put the female in a slightly smaller container than she had before. i bought a higher watt bulb to get a bit more heat. i was lucky in that a couple of weeks back i had bought some new bluebottle maggots (my others had been in the fridge for too long and the hatch rate had pretty much dropped to 0, so i had been forced to use crickets until now) and the first batch had just hatched out, so loads of bluebottles at my disposal. fed them on honey.

waited for a few days feeding the flies up with honey, keeping the mantids seperate from each other but much higher temps than before, spraying everyday (not sure why, i guess it was a bit hot and didnt want them drying out). then saturday i introduced some flies to the male and female and they both went for them. male snapped two up before he got fat and lost interest, and the female mustve munched about four or five down. both looking pretty fat (especially the female), i introduced the female into the male's large container, just in front of him. he froze straight away, but made no advance. she didnt notice him and just walked away eventually. then on sunday she ate more flies, getting fatter. all day i could see the male looking at her, but not really making any advance.

then at midnight i spot him walking very slowly and jerkily towards her. however, i got worried as he was approaching her from the front and above, and she had her eye fixed on him. i was doing school work so got on with that and when i looked about fifteen minutes later, he had made the jump down onto her, but landed backwards. i watched as her righted himself and then tried to get in position to curl round and make the connection. TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT (!) they mated all night until at least 9am when i had to leave. i came home around 3pm yesterday and the male was on the other side of the container, female in the same spot, munching away on bluebottles, looking OBESE. so hopefully the mating worked.

anyway, to sum up i stopped introducing them for a bit, raised their heat, changed the food (and gave them plenty of it), reintroduced them (female to male) with ample food, heat and space, and crossed my fingers.

in your case i would say the female is fed enough, so basically put them together in a fairly large container, have some food in there (flies go everywhere in the container whereas crickets stay at the bottom alot), and raise the temperature.

good luck to you and tell us how it goes!