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If they drink, you're fine to spray them. But if they're a species from a very dry region and do not drink the water you spray them with, I would highly recommend against spraying them.

Dry species have a tendency to be more prone to diseases if kept in the wrong environment than a species accustomed to wet conditions where microbes flourish. If a species is less likely to encounter a pathogen naturally in the wild, they are usually more likely to succumb to such a pathogen...

A week isn't long enough to be much of a risk as long as they're not really small nymphs and you've fed them prior to leaving. I wouldn't leave small nymphs without food for too long, since they're more likely to dehydrate without getting moisture from their food. They're also more liable to...

I doubt females will actively search others out unless they were extremely desperate for food or are forced to fight over one optimal place to hang around. Every female, assuming they're the same species, is as likely to inflict mortal wounds as another, so you can expect them to have evolved...

I buy deli cups and souffle cups and their corresponding lids from Smart and Final here in California. Deli cups and souffle cups with holes poked into the lids and on the sides work well for me for small nymphs and small species. I hot glue strips of paper towel on the sides and a circle of...

It's possible, but fairly unlikely since you're bound to encounter weak nymphs, disease, and mismolts. The larger number of offspring a species produces, the lower survival rates you can expect for their offspring. You should expect that organisms will tend to produce offspring that have the...

One of the two remaining females finally laid an ootheca. I've witnessed both connecting with three different males at least half a dozen times, ending with cohabiting with a male for a month until they both ate their males and the remaining male died of old age. One female fell during her molt...

They consume large numbers of prey, but are hardly efficient at biological control since they end up controlling their own population density through their non-specific appetites and thus cannot be encountered in numbers high enough for them to be proficient pest control. In addition, they are...

Any species growing near human habitation and agricultural areas within the US have high likelihood of being impacted by pesticide useage. T. sinensis and S. carolina are the two most commonly distributed biological control species in the US, so they're bound to be the most visible species even...

It's hard to say if the non-natives are pushing out the natives, since all species seem to be suffering extreme population loss from the very common use of pesticides. The only difference is that the most non-natives are constantly re-introduced through oothecae from people purchasing them...

I've found Camponotus queens by peeling the bark off of old logs and by tearing apart at old logs looking for wood-boring insects. I even found a couple queens in a big log on the periphery an established colony within when I went to collect some larvae and pupae to boost queens I'd already...

Mantises can and will go after absurdly large prey at times, just to eat a little bit of it before dropping or letting go of the extra. Ever see what happens in a terrarium full of walking sticks that have run out of food for a day? They start cannibalizing each other. I wouldn't trust the...

The high spore load of a mushroom kept within an enclosure could be detrimental to the health of any organisms being kept within the enclosure--especially if we're talking about organisms that are used to be out in the open where they are exposed to good airflow and air quality such as mantises...

Ants make pretty interesting pets when they're not pests. I have five Camponotus modoc queens with a dozen or so workers each that are overwintering right now. I'm going to need to make and set up some larger containers for them soon they're all still in temporary housing such as vials.

My experience is that 32 oz cups can be very bad places for large mantises to molt into adulthood. If they molt near a wall and end up with their backs against it, they'll try to grip it and end up either falling or bending their limbs by hanging in an awkward position. The fabric on the lids...

When I kept black widows that I'd caught, they'd pretty much eat anything that got tangled their webs. I used to feed them adult male hissing cockroaches when I culled smaller males from my colony. Once they enough of a web for you to toss things into without them falling through, it's just a...

Looks like he managed to reabsorb the excess hemolymph used to pump the wings up like they're meant to do after the wings have fully hardened. Sometimes the hemolymph bubbles stay because the damage also prevents proper redistribution of the hemolymph--it's good that that wasn't the case for him.

With insects such as dragonflies and damselflies, acetone is used to preserve color in specimens since it very quickly removes water and fat content from the specimens without discoloration like with alcohol. Many dragonflies are only easily identified by their coloration, so this method is...

Uh oh, you're going to be wishing your roaches breed faster then! :tt2:

When I had four wild-caught Iris oratoria females, they would go through about 200 medium to large red runners before each laying an ootheca--about 25 roaches each week per female. You'll need less when just feeding non-breeding individuals and nymphs, but you'll find yourself using a high...