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In the winter, after I have around 4 or 5 ooths, I feed them only enough for them to have food to survive but not to produce ooths (on a mass production mentality). I find that laying more ooths will shorten their lifespan (just a presumption, and not necessarily true, based on what I see). I...

A month and a half ago is still early. Sometimes, I leave mines indoor longer than that and they still hatch fine in the spring when I put them outside.

14? Wow, you must be feeding it a lot. Mines never got to that many ooths, but then again, I don't feed as much once they've had like about 3 or 4 ooths because a lot are already going to hatch from those.

Agree with both of the above posts. Check the coxa of it's forelegs. There should be an eye spot (or black spot in some individuals).

If memory serves me correctly, they can walk on water.

Its the time of year for them to start dying due to the cold. If you keep it inside and feed it, assuming it has recovered, you can squeeze another ooth or two from it. But it's a naturalized exotic so it doesn't really matter.

For my mantids, the females will usually start calling again after the 2nd or 3rd ooth is laid. One mating is usually enough, but it doesn't hurt for genetic diversity (or the sometimes extra meal).

As people might say, your mantid could be eggbound. If that mantid has been adult for that amount of time, she should have already had ooths like your other females.

I'm surprised you took notice of these colors. I've had similar experience too (in the past) except mines were raised on a shrubby plum tree and the colors are more enhanced. These combination of colors (green with the darkish reddish) is my favorite in the Iris oratoria compared to solid...

You have to understand that in nature, a mantid (or should I say any organism) does not wait until lunch or dinner before it can eat. Predators eat at every given opportunity because they do not know when the next meal will come along.

It's my experience that they will, at least with the mantids I'm dealing with, but you'll probably have to give them 2-3 molts. My last experiment to show the color change failed because I didn't give it enough time.

Some years ago, I tried feeding them to my mantids. In some cases, the spider bit the foreleg of the mantid which resulted in the mantid quickly dropping it. The mantid became sluggish and died a few days afterwards. So like everyone said so far, no.

Based on your pictures, your mantid looks like it's a subadult. If so, next molt will be the final molt and it'll be an adult with wings.

I guess there needs to be an agreement of the color pink. The european mantid picture I would consider a light brown color. As for the second picture, I have little experience with limbatas so I don't know what ranges of colors they come in. There does seem to be a slight pink in the wings...

Maybe where you are at the color yellow may be rare, but where I'm at, I appreciate greens or browns because yellow is the more abundant color. If you want a pink mantid, I suspect you try the mantids that may mimic flowers like the orchid mantids or of the sort. Europeans cannot become pink...

Update: Mission failure. The subadult molted 2 days ago but still remained yellow. Excuse for failure: I capture the mantid as a subadult. I have no idea how long it has been as subadult prior to capture. Color change requires time and I suspect a longer period is required than 2 1/2 weeks...

If you're refering to photos when you see people hold their mantids, it could be just for that photo shoot so try not to get the impression that people hold their mantids often (if not, nevermind). The only thing I can do is make an educational guess as to why you should limit holding your...

When you say midget, how many inches do you mean (male vs female)? I don't know about you, but the female Iris oratoria in my experience that have not yet been mated, are fat, and are calling has always been submissive to males even if the male is larger than her. Just make sure the male isn't...

Interesting colors. Did you raise it up yourself? When I don't give my mantids (Iris oratoria) any particular color to work on (e.g. yellow, green, brown), a few of them come out similar to yours.

Green it is. Mantiseater, the mantid could easily remain yellow since it's already yellow in the first place. If you were actually referring to a dark yellow/gold color, I don't think the female mantid is capable of becoming that dark of a yellow (at least I haven't seen one yet for a female...