Age

Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Curiosity

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 29, 2020
Messages
171
Reaction score
33
Location
Northern Idaho
I know that you can make it take longer for a nymph to reach adulthood by messing around with its environment, how often it's fed, etc. (As I've said before, I've learned remarkably little in 5 years. . .) If you do this, does it extend their lifespan or just make it so that a larger percentage of their life is spent as a nymph?

 
I know that you can make it take longer for a nymph to reach adulthood by messing around with its environment, how often it's fed, etc. (As I've said before, I've learned remarkably little in 5 years. . .) If you do this, does it extend their lifespan or just make it so that a larger percentage of their life is spent as a nymph?
It extends their lifespan, possibly greatly but only by the length of time they are nymphs.

Let's say a mantis species normally takes 3 months to reach maturity and adults live 4 months. If you extend the nymph time to 10 months they live a total of 14 months. Of course if you aren't careful you just kill them in month 2 and you've greatly shortened the lifespan.

 
It extends their lifespan, possibly greatly but only by the length of time they are nymphs.
Just so I understand:  lifespan becomes fixed once they hit adulthood and metabolism can't be manipulated by controlled feeding & lower temps? 

 
Top