You can rub the whole enclosure really, really fast :shock: ....but really, heat the whole room, that way all enclosures are a consistant temp if you have other BEASTS that need the same environments.
I usually just keep mantids at the room temperature
often I keep them on top of reptile tanks so get some heat from there
suppose you could set up an aquarium with bricks in it, fill water to below bricks, use aquarium heater, have something solid between bricks and place mantid tanks there? lol, its done for reptile eggs sometimes but is an awful fuss I would think
can I ask why you need/want another heating method or are you just looking to see whats out there?
yeah..I have been told to incubate my cham eggs using the awuarium method..but like you say, its a fair bit of fuss when you can incubate them of a heat mat.
Also..keeping on reptile vivs, like you say, works great. I have hatched many oxyopsis ooths by just putting them in a cricket tub, and on top of a heated viv.
you could runn your hot watter supply through pipes behind the mantid cages like a radiator . it would be alot of work and nowhere near as cost effecient as a lamp or pad. but its possible
in fact rich people do it to their tiled floors so when they walk without socks their feet dont get cold
you would need a waterheater and a pump
the only real advantage i could see is it would be less of a fire hazard and you could hide it into the carpentry if you built a custom mantis shelf thing