Beetles?

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Last night i was walking my dog and walked past a street light and saw like 40 or 50 beetles.

I have seen this before and just keep walking but i have some hungry mantis at my house so i ran back to my house came back with a container and collect like 20 or so (only the un-crushed and running ones).

I have not had time to take there pictures but was wondering if anybody knew what they eat and if a diet of mainly beetles would affect the helth of my mantis.

I think they are Phyllophaga here is a link.

 

[Rick]

They will be fine for your mantids to eat as long as the mantids are large enough to get past the hard exoskeleton. I caught some very large beetles once and even a giant asian mantis couldn't eat them because they were so hard.

 

[lectricblueyes]

They will be fine for your mantids to eat as long as the mantids are large enough to get past the hard exoskeleton. I caught some very large beetles once and even a giant asian mantis couldn't eat them because they were so hard.

Same here, had some kind of a flat looking bug and the top of it was very hard. He kept tapping on the hard shell with his raptor claws and... no go.

 

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Ill see what my damage my mantis can do tomorrow i put some banana in there with them today and they destroyed it!! I just hope they ate some and din't just played with it. :mellow:

 

[hibiscusmile]

humm, couldn't u split them with a razor knife? gruesome.......