Search results

You can get deli cups from your grocery store deli; at the local Safeway, they are 5 cents each with lids. Then, i just cut a circle in the lid and hot glue some screening to the lid. You can get some twigs from outdoors or cut some more screening for the interior, just make sure it won't tip...

It could only happen on Star Trek, where the writers/producers have no idea of the definition of species. Genetically, we are closer to chimps and dolphins, and nobody would think it normal for a human to want to mate with these animals nor would we expect viable offspring, yet on Star Trek...

In the wild, an ooth will produce hundreds of mantids. Odds are that in a given area, a wild mantis will mate with a relative. Insects are very different from mammals and don't have the same issues as mammal interbreeding (like bad hips on dogs, retardation, etc.) Anthony

I have just a few mantids, so I have named all of them. My two Chinese mantids are Vic (after Vic from the Strike Team on "The Shield" TV show) and Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica). The Marbled Mantid is named "Merlin." The Orchid Mantids all have names: Kali, Lillith, Loki, and Scarlett...

There are a number of products on the market to feed crickets. This is because crickets are eaten by many reptile pets. Try Fluker's Orange Cube Cricket Feeder or Total Bites. Link 1: http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?R=5...yID=102105& Link 2...

I needed some pupae right away, so I ordered online on a Thursday night and asked for express (overnight) shipping. A few minutes later, I got a confirmation and expected shipment on Friday. Instead, I got a phone message on Friday, asking if I wanted express shipping. I called back late...

Well, mantids will not eat before and just after molting. They will ignore or run away from food during this time. And there may be a "learned aversion" because of a bad experience--getting bitten by a cricket for example. To fix your "cowardly mantis," I would try smaller crickets until you...

Mine eat crickets. The trick is to get the right size of cricket--about the same size as a normal housefly will get the mantids' attention. The other thing is the enclosure--crickets may not be able to get where the mantis is "hanging" out. The cricket should be able to crawl around, just...

The test has to involve something that is a normal behavior. For a worm, crawling to see food/shelter is a normal behavior. For a mantis, probably not. Mantids tend to stay in one spot and strike prey, so (assuming mantids can see in color, for example, which I don't know if they can or not)...

Thankfully, scientists don't think like you. Instead, they formulate testable hypotheses and conduct observation and tests, rather than presume as you do that observations of mantis behavior are driven by emotions and wishful thinking. "There's no reason to think that mantises have emotions."...

You make it sound like instincts and emotions are mutually exclusive, but that may not necessarily be true. Very complex behaviors can be instinctive, for example the instinctive behavior a spider exihibits in spinning a complex web. Some instinctive courting rituals of animals are quite...

Well, having talked about mantis intelligence, I'd like to bring up the idea of mantis emotions. Or more specifically, mantis behaviors that seem to show a rudimentary level of emotions. For example: 1) Excitement--I have seen mantids notice a prey animal and begin to open their mandibles and...

If you're on the West Coast, try www.oregonfeederinsects.com and get some housefly pupae. Call them using the phone number on the website to order. It's just under $11 for a thousand or so pupae, and they will eventually produce houseflies that can fly. Keep the pupae in your fridge and dump...

If you count your mantids, the count will get easier over time because they will eat each other if they run into each other. Anthony

Your best bet for feeding smaller mantids is to use fruit flies. Drosophila melanogaster flightless for the smallest mantids; Drosophila hydrei for small to medium sized mantids. They can escape if you don't exercise some common sense. Since you have an outdoors, one thing you can do is to...

If you can't find a UK site, just visit any college/university with a genetics lab. Almost certainly, you will find Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies there for genetics studies. They will be happy to let you have a jar of adults and you can then breed those for your own purposes. Anthony

Generally, mantids are insects that prefer to ambush their prey==which means that mantids tend to stay in one position and one spot for extended periods. Mantids seem to like being upside down or head down a lot. So, from a photography perspective, they aren't very active and moving like a...

Stories like this make me think that mantis intelligence has not been sufficiently researched, which was why I made my original post. There's anecdotal stories to indicate that mantids have more intellgence than your average house fly or typical insect. It's instinctive for insects to fear...

Here's one of my Orchid Mantids, from Yen Saw:

I never said memory was unrelated to intelligence, only that they are two different things. And the behavior is *not* habituation, but instead evidence of learning. Habituation would be a reduction in response due to repeated stimulation. If you're going to throw out a term like that, you...