Any guesses on instar for my D.desiccata?

cat_h · Aug 4, 2017

Hi all,

I have taken a couple pics of my larger female D.desiccata, and the male too. I'm hoping someone will be able to hazard a guess at how many more moults I should be expecting from each to get to adulthood...

Female 1:

Male:

My second female is 1 moult behind the female pictured.

Looking at them in light of peoples comments about wingbuds... am I right in thinking the male's are much more prominent? Just to make sure i'm looking at the right thing.

I love how the pronotum shape is sexually dimorphic.

I have more pics from todays photo escapade so I'm going to start a thread in the Mantid Photos section for me to add them to as they grow.

So... guesses on Instar?

Thanks for looking!

Cat

Mystymantis · Aug 4, 2017

My guess for the male is that the next molt will be adult, judging by the size of the wing buds like you said. And yes the males wing buds are more visible which seems to indicate he will be an adult next molt. And the female might have one more molt before the adult. Or she might molt into an adult the next time she molts, I can't quite see the size of the wing buds, but like you said they are smaller. Not sure how many total molts this species has though.

izbiggs · Aug 4, 2017

@cat_h @Mystymantis I agree in the assumption that the male is subadult, or L7. His wing buds look quite swollen and prominent, as noted! The males have 8 molts and the females have 9, so the female could be on the same molt but not in the same stage of her life. So for the male almost definitely one, first female I'm guessing two or more, and for the second female, three or more. Gorgeous mantids!

cat_h · Aug 4, 2017

izbiggs said:
@cat_h @Mystymantis I agree in the assumption that the male is subadult, or L7. His wing buds look quite swollen and prominent, as noted! The males have 8 molts and the females have 9, so the female could be on the same molt but not in the same stage of her life. So for the male almost definitely one, first female I'm guessing two or more, and for the second female, three or more. Gorgeous mantids!

This is really informative, thanks!!

I'm really looking forward to seeing them get their wings, it's such a fascinating process which i had never really appreciated before keeping these guys.

I'll have to look into finding my male a more mature lady friend or he'll end up a 40wk old virgin lol