Hi everyone,
So this might be an unusual situation. I found a Mantis crawling on the back garden fence (Perth, Western Australia) on New Years Day so I caught it and placed it in a small plastic container the like for Hummus! Later that day when looking for some fruit flies, I managed to find two more so I though to myself, I might try and raise these... They are already L3 and doing great. Only downside is it looks like they are all Male Garden mantids. I was really looking forward to possible breeding!
Fast forward to this last week. I managed to find 5 more new nymphs, these ones are a different species but still too small to tell what they are. They look like they could be Budwing as I can see some stripes on their legs and they hold their raptorial legs out in front unlike the Garden variety.
The same day I found these new nymphs I found an adult female Chinese Mantis!!! I placed her in a large old (clean) fish tank with a dried palm tree husk that fell in my garden and fed her some grasshoppers and crickets... only had her 3 days and woke up this morning to find the cockroach she wasn't interested in yesterday had been reduced to a single leg AND a freshly laid Ootheca placed perfectly on the underside of the palm husk!
I can only think that this is not how all mantis keepers start out on their journey so I wanted to share this with you all in my first post. I just hope she had mated prior to me finding her and I have some new babies on the way in a month or so!
Still a complete newbie at keeping mantids and learning as I go, any comments on my setup etc would be greatly appreciated. I'm definitely not sure on the small stones and want to get a better substrate.
Niall
So this might be an unusual situation. I found a Mantis crawling on the back garden fence (Perth, Western Australia) on New Years Day so I caught it and placed it in a small plastic container the like for Hummus! Later that day when looking for some fruit flies, I managed to find two more so I though to myself, I might try and raise these... They are already L3 and doing great. Only downside is it looks like they are all Male Garden mantids. I was really looking forward to possible breeding!
Fast forward to this last week. I managed to find 5 more new nymphs, these ones are a different species but still too small to tell what they are. They look like they could be Budwing as I can see some stripes on their legs and they hold their raptorial legs out in front unlike the Garden variety.
The same day I found these new nymphs I found an adult female Chinese Mantis!!! I placed her in a large old (clean) fish tank with a dried palm tree husk that fell in my garden and fed her some grasshoppers and crickets... only had her 3 days and woke up this morning to find the cockroach she wasn't interested in yesterday had been reduced to a single leg AND a freshly laid Ootheca placed perfectly on the underside of the palm husk!
I can only think that this is not how all mantis keepers start out on their journey so I wanted to share this with you all in my first post. I just hope she had mated prior to me finding her and I have some new babies on the way in a month or so!
Still a complete newbie at keeping mantids and learning as I go, any comments on my setup etc would be greatly appreciated. I'm definitely not sure on the small stones and want to get a better substrate.
Niall
