Oh, then it looks like it's going to take a while for you. Sometimes that happens to me too because it all depends on the female. It would be faster if your female was one of those who like to gorge everything. Nonetheless, I don't see anything wrong with your mantid and so you should expect an oothecae soon.
No problem. I think that your female is cool especially since she's starting to put on weight and devour food. At least its not the opposite :blink: I've mated females of this species three days after the final molt and they produced healthy nymphs. So, I don't think it was too early though something could have gone wrong. I'm about to start mating mine in a couple of days. We should compare our breeding success to try to find some normality with the female and her behavior with laying an ooth. Though keep in mind, once the female starts laying ooths of this species, they keep on going like every week. Not like Mantis religiosa.
Well, as usual, I have to type that one of my females has not laid...in order for her to make an ooth. Not that pretty and a little crooked, but about 1/2" long on the upper side of the branch. She took another whole subadult cricket last night before laying. I didn't see any unusual behavior last night before or after she ate.
Wait, so it did lay finally? If so congratulations. And thanks for the time span because my female religiosa still hasn't layed an ooth yet. I'm sorry to hear about your mismolt. I've never had a mismolt on the finally one to adult hood.Well, as usual, I have to type that one of my females has not laid...in order for her to make an ooth. Not that pretty and a little crooked, but about 1/2" long on the upper side of the branch. She took another whole subadult cricket last night before laying. I didn't see any unusual behavior last night before or after she ate.M. religiosa have about a 2 or 3 week interval between ooths IIRC,. Gotta check my records.
On a bad note, one more of the females mis-molted. Her 'arms' didn't come out of the exuviae. And she was hanging by her arms this morning
Yes, she did lay and thanks. The first religiosa ooths were typically about 4 weeks from mating taking about 1 adult cricket per day.
Wow. A whole month? That's something else. I feed her like two crickets a day but she's startin to run me dry so I'm gonna reduce it to one a day. I gotta get some crix today so she hasn't eaten for two days but she's still fat, so I definitely think she's pregnant. Either that or a slow metabolism. How are you gonna store your ooths for your oratoria? And like I said, don't be surprised if she lays another one next week. I love it, the only problem is that I have to constantly monitor their container to make sure there's not a lot of crix. I've lost a couple of ooths to hungry crickets before. :angry:
I'm going to put the oratoria ooths in the fridge in the ventilated plastic-lined paper cups that I'm selling (only because I bought a whole sleeve). I might force a faster hatch if I end up with too many ooths and try to push another generation over the winter.
I warned you. That happened to me so many times. Good luck in hatching that one. Another thing, I think it's interesting that it took so long for your female to lay. My female laid two days after mating, I'm not sure if its even fertile but I'm still keeping it nonetheless. Congrats on your ooths too. You probably know that it's not necessary to put them in the fridge but you can if you want too.
I risked it with the crix since I thought she'd whack it right away. Luckily I was checking in occasionally and caught the evil doer.
They can and will hatch at lower temperatures. However, warm temperatures will speed up the incubation period and yield more and healthier nymphs.
You're luckier than me. Compared to me, I had 8 females and only 1 male. I was planning to mate all the females at least once with the male but unfortunately the male dissappeared. I forgot to close the lid and so it flew away during the night. During that time, I only had one female mated and so it looks like the rest of the females will go unmated. The mated female so far has made 2 oothecaes and so hopefully they hatch. Well, it looks like I'm going to half to witness some parthogenesis if it does happen next year.update: I know have 5 adult females, one adult male, one sub-adult male, and one male nymph. Two of the five females were successfully mated (laying three ooths total so far). Fingers crossed for a breeding success
Yeah, I usually keep all my mantids outside. And yeah, I can catch males anytime. Actually, I have captured 4 males but I don't intend on mating them with my females. I have an experiment going on and I will not let Iris oratoria outside my mantid gene pool mate with my own Iris oratoria. If I did, I would be setting my experiment back a year or two. Of the four males, only one possibly has the trait that I'm looking for and so I'll probably mate him only (I'm hoping he is one of the ones that escaped from my own batch when they were still instars). He'll be my backup male if the two oothecaes don't hatch (the original experimental pair).
