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Neck color is an inaccurate method of sexing as well. My experience is that sometimes females will retain the brown coloration until days after becoming subadults. The segment count is also inaccurate since a skinny male will appear to have only five segments. Males actually have seven if you...

If you find an individual exhibiting a specific characteristic, you can try selectively breeding for that characteristic. If it is heritable, you should at the very least be able to increase the percentage of individuals with that characteristic over time. You will need to learn some basic...

There's structural and size differences in genitalia that makes mating difficult or impossible between mantises of different species. It becomes even more pronounced when you look at different genuses. If you can get across the barrier of size and structure of genitalia, then you have to somehow...

As long as it isn't newly hatched or hasn't recently molted since its last meal, it should be fine. Mantises can last a decent while without a significant meal unless they're already starved or empty from a recent molt. If you're worried, you can give it some sugar in the form of sugar solution...

That's a female. Phyllocrania paradoxa females have wider protuberance on their head than males. If you counted the abdominal sternites, or the segments on the underside, the females have six and the males have eight. Females have fewer because the segments fuse to form the parts of the ovipositor.

The end of his abdomen is normal. That's just what the male external reproductive organs look like. It's much more noticeably when they've recently molted as all the body parts are distended or inflated.

A piece of paper towel in a sealed container with a drop or two of water should work. Just open the container every once in a while for some gas exchange. Not much gas exchange will be needed since eggs don't require a great deal of oxygen. Waxworms will be too big. The assassin bug nymphs...

Assassin bugs produce liquid waste. If you want to hatch the eggs, keep them humid so that they do not dry out before they hatch. I've never kept Wheel Bugs, so I have no idea if they are a species with eggs, nymphs, or adults that diapause to get through the winter. If the eggs do not...

The main reason not to have hybrids: to maintain the genetic composition of a successful species that has evolved naturally. This isn't a case of pureblood/line-bred breeds of organisms. Dogs of every breed and every combination of breeds are the same species, there's no hybridization going on...

If the hybrids are capable of producing fertile offspring, some may have the appearance of one of the pure parent species, but still be a hybrid. If you look at hybrid pheasants that have been crossed back and forth for generations, you'll find many of them appear to have the most of the plumage...

Hornworms raised as feeders have not had the opportunity to ingest the compounds in solanaceous plants and store them for use as a chemical defense against predation. They're fed a diet that's mostly wheat germ, so they're fine to use as feeders. The chemical compounds they have in the wild...

Some mantises have hairs along the sides of their bodies to help them break up the outline of their body when they're flattened against a surface. It makes them much more difficult to find when the hairs obscure their shape and hide the shadows cast underneath their bodies. Tarachodes have hairs...

A source of sugar and a source of just drinking water is the best way to keep them alive. You can also provide them with a source of protein, but that would have to be very frequently changed to avoid having things getting stinky and nasty. Milk, crushed pollen mixed with some dilute sugar...

Invertebrates repair damage by scabbing and molting, but scabs are not effective and are a source of continuous moisture loss and eventually get infected. In mantis nymphs, this is usually not an issue as they can molt and repair it in time, but adult mantises do not molt again and eventually die.

Most wild-caught mantis females have already mated by the end of the season, so there is good a chance that she could produce fertile oothecae. Mantises do not get pregnant since they do fertilize eggs until they're about to be passed out of the body and are considered gravid if they're carrying...

They're a common naturalized species in the US and are pretty widespread and are able to handle a variety of conditions. I've found them in areas like San Francisco where the weather tends to be pretty cool and humid as well as in very hot and dry areas adjacent to riparian environments. They do...

Mantises are pretty capable of squeezing through tight spaces if they feel the need to, so separators tend not to work unless there are no spaces. When attacked, most slugs produce a thicker, stickier mucus that acts like a glue, so I doubt your mantis would eat one. It'll probably grab it, try...

Looks like Mantis religiosa.

It won't be a problem. It would only be an issue if one ootheca was laid directly on top of the other, blocking the area where the nymphs hatch out of.

In mantises and many other arthropods, sperm is stored in the spermatheca of the female and the spermatheca branches off the oviduct. Eggs of arthropods are not fertilized until they pass down the oviduct where the spermatheca is. That's why even insects that give live birth still have to lay...