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Heh, she certainly didn’t go 18 months as an adult. I didn’t keep an exact note of when she did moult to adult, but it was sometime between mid April to May 2021, so she still made it to 9 months as an adult

The older one passed away this week at the grand old age of approx 21 months (I got her as a L2 around the end of July 2020). The younger one laid an ootheca last Friday though. :-) Roughly how long will it take to hatch?

I have 2 adult females, the older of which is now about 18 months old, and the other one is a couple of months younger.    I tried breeding the older one back in June, but the first mating seemed to be unsuccessful, and she ate the male on the second attempt. I’ve now got a chance at getting...

3 weeks and counting.   I don’t know if she’s developing eggs or just been eating a lot, any thoughts?

Thanks. I put my male in with the female yesterday and he got busy 😁 so I’ve got my fingers crossed for an ootheca.  Does it help to give her lots of food, or pure honey as a substitute for bees? And what sort of time does it take for her to lay an ooth and for it to hatch?

I have an adult female orchid who moulted to adult about 4 weeks ago, and a male who moulted to adult about 4 days ago. As I was thinking about getting an adult male to try and breed the female, this feels like a sign! From reading up on it, the general advice is to wait for a month after the...

Thanks!

I’ve just ordered what’s just my second batch of housefly pupae. They seem to be gradually hatching if taken out of the fridge for a while, and I can then put the hatched flies into the terrarium for the mantis to catch. However, this batch are all coming out only able to crawl around, and some...

One of my orchids has lost a forearm at the elbow joint . Not sure if it gotten bitten off by a cricket(it was OK yesterday), he bit it off himself, or got it trapped somehow (he’s in a plastic pot with press on lid). From a quick read up, it seems that it may be able to regenerate the arm at...

He’s doing Ok, just doesn’t seem to be eating much in the last few days. I just put him and a cricket in a deli pot together to see if he would be interested, and while he grabbed it, he didn’t eat much of it, so the part eaten cricket is running round the pot. Will probably have to euthanase...

Ok thanks 

My adult male orchid doesn’t seem to have eaten for a few days and I’m a bit worried about him being hungry. Normally I just pick him up, put him back down on the substrate, and then get a cricket or locust to run past him which he’ll grab if he’s hungry, but in the last few days he seems rather...

I’m nothing if not persistent! I’ve just spent a couple of hours with a magnifying glass and a pair of nail scissors, removing as much of the shed skin as I though I safely could. She’s now able to move her legs at least, and is now being given all the honey she can eat as a treat and an easy...

I had some new L2 orchid mantises turn up yesterday. The breeder warned me that they might start to moult to L3 as her unsold nymphs from the same ooth were moulting, Sure enough, one was lying on the floor of its pot when it arrived. I assumed it had died while moulting en route, but a while...

Thanks, it’s been some hours now. Still hanging there, and I can still see his abdomen moving occasionally, whether that’s good, bad or indifferent.   And I wasn’t sure whether to post this in this forum or the health forum.

I had 3 orchids arrive today (ordered 2, got 1 free 🙂). The breeder messaged me yesterday that she thought they might be starting to moult to L3, and some unsold ones from the same ooth were moulting. Sure enough, one was lying on the floor of the pot when it arrived. I thought it was dead at...

OK thanks. 🙂 I got him from a  reptile/invert shop who said they could order them in. Will go to a dedicated mantis breeder next time though, And at least it’s good experience for starting out.

Picked him up from the shop today. Managed to catch a couple of half dead flies (we have a conservatory where one corner ends up knee deep in the little *******s) so I found a couple that could still run around, put them in the enclosure, and found him eating one when I looked a bit later! 🙂

Thanks, I was going to leave the heat off with a male. Was keeping it high as I was planning for a female. Hygrometer is quite useful though, and as I’ve brought it... 😅 As for feeding, I’ll keep an eye on him. May try feeding with tweezers if it seems necessary 

After doing a fair bit of research and reading up, I decided I would start with an orchid mantis after all, which I’ll be picking up tomorrow. I think it’s a young male as I ordered a female, but it has a brown collar and the supplier said they were sold out of females. 🙁   Just thought it’d be...