And these are supposed to be hard to catch

[MantidLord]

Well, after about a month after the first laid ooth from one of my females, they finally hatched. They must have hatched either yesterday or two days ago. Unfortunately, about 5 or 6 died, leaving me with 7 left. No worries though, as the ooth doesn't seem to be finished hatching, and I have three more from that female (mated a ridiculous amount of times). However, a series of brutal cannibalisms and random deaths (and one old age death) have left me with one adult female and two sub-adult males. The females can live fairly long, so she should be able to have a lot of life left in her by the time the males are ready to do their thing.

The whole fact that these guys hatched during the summer does support the idea that their generations may overlap. You figure, it's been 113 degrees here, yet my house is kept at around 78. So if they hatched about a month in this "environment", imagine how soon they hatched out in the wild. :blink: I guess that's one reason they're able to coexist with the larger and more abundant I. oratoria (that and their aggressive attitude).

As far as the little ones go, as expected, they're too small for even melanogaster, so I've thrown some springtail culture stuff in their enclosure, and they started to eat some springtails. Unfortunately a couple of those mite things are in there as well. I saw three mantids attempt to eat them, but apparently they are unedible and they dropped them. I expected the mite thing to either die or climb upon the mantis. Good thing the latter didnt happen. Maybe they're a predatory mite that feeds off of springtails. Either way the springtail populations are still fairly large.

Not to sound like a broken tape recorder, but pics will be coming soon. Especially now that I have a computer.

 

[Ntsees]

Well, after about a month after the first laid ooth from one of my females, they finally hatched. They must have hatched either yesterday or two days ago. Unfortunately, about 5 or 6 died, leaving me with 7 left. No worries though, as the ooth doesn't seem to be finished hatching, and I have three more from that female (mated a ridiculous amount of times). However, a series of brutal cannibalisms and random deaths (and one old age death) have left me with one adult female and two sub-adult males. The females can live fairly long, so she should be able to have a lot of life left in her by the time the males are ready to do their thing.

The whole fact that these guys hatched during the summer does support the idea that their generations may overlap. You figure, it's been 113 degrees here, yet my house is kept at around 78. So if they hatched about a month in this "environment", imagine how soon they hatched out in the wild. :blink: I guess that's one reason they're able to coexist with the larger and more abundant I. oratoria (that and their aggressive attitude).

As far as the little ones go, as expected, they're too small for even melanogaster, so I've thrown some springtail culture stuff in their enclosure, and they started to eat some springtails. Unfortunately a couple of those mite things are in there as well. I saw three mantids attempt to eat them, but apparently they are unedible and they dropped them. I expected the mite thing to either die or climb upon the mantis. Good thing the latter didnt happen. Maybe they're a predatory mite that feeds off of springtails. Either way the springtail populations are still fairly large.

Not to sound like a broken tape recorder, but pics will be coming soon. Especially now that I have a computer.

Nice. The generations do overlap then. Have you tried hatching any ooths with actual outside temps (as if they were in the wild and subject to ~113 degrees) and see if they will still hatch?

 

[MantidLord]

Nice. The generations do overlap then. Have you tried hatching any ooths with actual outside temps (as if they were in the wild and subject to ~113 degrees) and see if they will still hatch?

No I haven't I didn't want to risk drying them out (despite them thriving in those conditions). With my bad luck lately in failing to hatch chinese, M. religiosa, and I. oratoria ooths, I didn't want to take any chances. I guess I could test it out on upcoming ooths though. Oh, and the ooths are placed facing "up" (the zipper part facing up), so there's no need to hang the ooths. Cool species, but their small size at this stage is frustrating, I hope I can find a better way to feed them springtails. If only I had some aphids.

 

[MantidLord]

Had about 9 hatch out this morning/last night. Contrary to what I read somewhere about them hatching one at a time, I actually witnessed three hatch at the same time. Didn't take long for them to hatch and start running around either.

So far, okay. Not sure if the older ones are finding the springtails in their enclosure, so I'm probably going to try something different. I actually hand fed one of them a fruitfly Lot of patience, hopefully it's worth it. I also still have the adult female waiting patiently for the two males to hurry up. I'm stuffing them and heating them up to get them jump started. Wish me luck.

 

[MantidLord]

Man these nymphs are a pain. Out of all the little hatchlings I've had, only one is still alive. It seems they didn't do well with the paper towel substrate, so I put this last one in a container without any. I've been feeding it springtails, but it seems he can't/won't eat them. Here's what happens. He (for simplicity's sake) stalks the springtail, runs towards it, grabs it, chews on it, and drops it. He's so skinny I'm afraid he won't make it.

And to make matters worst, one of the subadult males got eaten by a cricket (and it wasn't even molting). The mantis was easily able to catch the cricket, but it didn't. And the other sub adult male molted to an adult, so I put him with the female. And he mounts the female constantly (probably five times), but I've never seen a connection. I haven't been staring at them, but every time I saw him on her, never a connection, so who knows. And know, I'm praying that he got the job done, because she layed a very small ooth and then ate him!

So I'm left with one female who may/may not be pregnant and a reluctant possibly dying nymph. Isn't this great. I still love these guys, but the nymphs are too dang weak! :angry:

Hopefully when it cools down, I can go and look for some more.

 

[massaman]

thats like the chinese and europeans they also are weak as newly hatched nymphs!

 

[MantidLord]

Yeah, but with the chinese, at least you get a couple of strong ones that pull through. The nymph is still alive. We shall see how everything goes. By the way, has anyone ever raised this species from L1 to adult?