Brand new to mantids!

[PhilinYuma]

A belated welcome from Yuma, AZ! How nice of you to want to give your female (not the one visiting her mother) a pleasant last few months!

Again, you got lots of good advice. Let me summarize:

Feeding. I cricket a day is good. a cricket every other day is good. Adding flies or other insects is good. Or not. Misting will increase the humidity in the cage for a few hours at the most. How long? It's easy to tell. Spray a little on the inside of the pot. When that has evaporated, the internal relative humidity is about the same as the ambient RH. Spraying the inside of the pot makes the caretaker feel good and doesn't do the mantis any harm, unless you blast the mantis with cold spray, as some folks do.

In other words, mantids are pretty tolerant of what we do to them. When you found your female, she was, like most Ca mantids at this time of year, starving. Your feeding her so well was the direct cause of her laying the ooth. Good job!

Since your one mantis is a good sized adult, it is unlikely that the crix will harm her, though I do recommend no more than one in the pot at a time. But keeping mantids is addictive and I wouldn't be surprised if you decided to get "just a couple more". If so it is a good idea to start raising your crix properly, and that includes feeding them animal protein in the form of dog or cat food. You can buy it in CA even if you don't have a cat or dog (don't ask, don't tell).

Good luck!

 

[Zeede]

A belated welcome from Yuma, AZ! How nice of you to want to give your female (not the one visiting her mother) a pleasant last few months!

Again, you got lots of good advice. Let me summarize:

Feeding. I cricket a day is good. a cricket every other day is good. Adding flies or other insects is good. Or not. Misting will increase the humidity in the cage for a few hours at the most. How long? It's easy to tell. Spray a little on the inside of the pot. When that has evaporated, the internal relative humidity is about the same as the ambient RH. Spraying the inside of the pot makes the caretaker feel good and doesn't do the mantis any harm, unless you blast the mantis with cold spray, as some folks do.

In other words, mantids are pretty tolerant of what we do to them. When you found your female, she was, like most Ca mantids at this time of year, starving. Your feeding her so well was the direct cause of her laying the ooth. Good job!

Since your one mantis is a good sized adult, it is unlikely that the crix will harm her, though I do recommend no more than one in the pot at a time. But keeping mantids is addictive and I wouldn't be surprised if you decided to get "just a couple more". If so it is a good idea to start raising your crix properly, and that includes feeding them animal protein in the form of dog or cat food. You can buy it in CA even if you don't have a cat or dog (don't ask, don't tell).

Good luck!

Yes, I will be sad when she passes.

Definitely if I get into raising mantids as a serious hobby I will need a more varied and less suspect food supply. What I did with the last batch of crickets was put them in a glass jar and drop in slices of apples. They ate those and survived about four days (at which point the last one was fed to my praying mantis). I saw that PetSmart sells cricket food, which is pretty silly, IMO.

Crickets eat dog food? That's easy enough to buy. You know, come to think of it, I don't know what crickets eat in the wild.

Cameron

 

[PhilinYuma]

Yes, I will be sad when she passes.

Definitely if I get into raising mantids as a serious hobby I will need a more varied and less suspect food supply. What I did with the last batch of crickets was put them in a glass jar and drop in slices of apples. They ate those and survived about four days (at which point the last one was fed to my praying mantis). I saw that PetSmart sells cricket food, which is pretty silly, IMO.

Crickets eat dog food? That's easy enough to buy. You know, come to think of it, I don't know what crickets eat in the wild.

Cameron

Oh boy, you're doomed already!

Crickets and cockroaches are omnivores. Some of us feed our crix animal protein -- dog or cat food -- in the hope that the crix will not be so eager to eat our mantids. By feeding no more than one cricket at a time, though, or because the Great Mantis Goddess (Blessed be Her Name) is watching over us, I have never had a cricket kill a mantis, even when they were molting. I've noticed, though, that crix will molt about once a week whatever you feed them.

 

[dgerndt]

Welcome!

Make sure you put that ooth in a container with a lid. If that hatches before you're ready, you'll have babies all over your room!

 

[Zeede]

Here's a link to what I have her in currently:

Click here

She's in the purple one, the second smallest. As she had wings when I found her, I knew she would not be molting again.

The ooth was laid attached to the "roof" of the enclosure. Are the slats on the lid small enough to keep nymphs inside?

Cameron

 

[PhilinYuma]

Here's a link to what I have her in currently:

Click here

She's in the purple one, the second smallest. As she had wings when I found her, I knew she would not be molting again.

The ooth was laid attached to the "roof" of the enclosure. Are the slats on the lid small enough to keep nymphs inside?

Cameron

Alas, no!

Some folks go to a lot of trouble to "nymph/ff proof" critter keepers, but they are just not designed for mantids. You need something taller than it is wide, to facilitate molting. 32oz deli cups with a cloth lid work very well. Besides, when you become a "serious hobbyist" you'll find fifty deli cups a lot cheaper than 50 critter keepers, though by that time you'll be checking out 12" net cubes.....

 

[PhilinYuma]

Here's a link to what I have her in currently:

Click here

She's in the purple one, the second smallest. As she had wings when I found her, I knew she would not be molting again.

The ooth was laid attached to the "roof" of the enclosure. Are the slats on the lid small enough to keep nymphs inside?

Cameron

Alas, no!

Some folks go to a lot of trouble to "nymph/ff proof" critter keepers, but they are just not designed for mantids. You need something taller than it is wide, to facilitate molting. 32oz deli cups with a cloth lid work very well. Besides, when you become a "serious hobbyist" you'll find fifty deli cups a lot cheaper than 50 critter keepers, though by that time you'll be checking out 12" net cubes.....

 

[dgerndt]

Here's a link to what I have her in currently:

Click here

She's in the purple one, the second smallest. As she had wings when I found her, I knew she would not be molting again.

The ooth was laid attached to the "roof" of the enclosure. Are the slats on the lid small enough to keep nymphs inside?

Cameron

Ooo, no. You're going to want to remove the ootheca. Crickets will eat it, and the mother might eat the nymphs if she's still around when it hatches. You can go to your local grocery store and get deli cups for free, usually. Use a cloth lid (I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and got some nice tightly-woven mesh) to keep the nymphs and fruitflies in.

 

[Zeede]

I only put one cricket in at a time, and watch them until they're eaten, so the risk to the ooth is minimal. If they manage to climb up onto the lid, they're dead meat anyways, as that's where mom is, and she'll put an end to any cricket shenanigans right quick.

Hmm, well what I might do then, is move mom to another enclosure (if she's even alive in 2-3 months) and just put the fabric over the top of the critter keeper (after removing the plastic slotted top). The height of the critter keeper is more than high enough for the nympths when they first come out.

I really don't want to move the ooth, as it is has oozed into the slots of the lid, and if I try and pull it off, I could easily damage it.

Of course, all this discussion is assuming my female mated at some point before I found her on Halloween.

Cameron

 

[dgerndt]

I only put one cricket in at a time, and watch them until they're eaten, so the risk to the ooth is minimal. If they manage to climb up onto the lid, they're dead meat anyways, as that's where mom is, and she'll put an end to any cricket shenanigans right quick.

Hmm, well what I might do then, is move mom to another enclosure (if she's even alive in 2-3 months) and just put the fabric over the top of the critter keeper (after removing the plastic slotted top). The height of the critter keeper is more than high enough for the nympths when they first come out.

I really don't want to move the ooth, as it is has oozed into the slots of the lid, and if I try and pull it off, I could easily damage it.

Of course, all this discussion is assuming my female mated at some point before I found her on Halloween.

Cameron

Well, you can easily take the ooth off the lid by gently misting it with dechlorinated water to moisten the foam and then it should wiggle right off. It should be better to remove the ooth anyway, because you'll want to arrange the ooth in the correct position to aid in the nymphs' hatching.

 

[sporeworld]

This might belong in a different thread, but on the topic of proper orientation, I've noticed that some ooths (Gongys/Ghosts) this is a must. But some others (Chinese/Idols) is really hard (or impossible) to find a seam to get them positioned properly. Is it possible that with those bigger, foamier ones that orientation isn't necessary...?

 

[PhilinYuma]

I suspect that the idea of "correct" orientation of ooths is right up there with spraying. The Stagmomantis limbata in my area tend to lay their "zippered" ooths either perpendicular to the ground or parallel to it. I can see two two on a wall that are ten feet above the ground. Will the nymphs be concussed when they fall after hatching? Will the nymphs from an "upside down" ooth fail to detach from their exuviae? If you don't know why you try to orient ooths when mounting them, why do you do it? Because other folks do? If other folks jumped off a cliff.....

 

[sporeworld]

HA! I hate cliffs! Otherwise, yeah - I'd jump! As long as all the cool kids are doing it.... (jk)

I know from experience that if I don't pin Gongy Ooths right, they come out all mangled. But if aimed down, all the nymphs climb back up the silk(?) and scurry off (they don't fall unless knocked down). But Gongy ooth LOOK like they have an up and down. Idols don't. At least not that I can tell.

Anyone seen any pics or videos of nymphs hatching...?

 

[PhilinYuma]

HA! I hate cliffs! Otherwise, yeah - I'd jump! As long as all the cool kids are doing it.... (jk)

I know from experience that if I don't pin Gongy Ooths right, they come out all mangled. But if aimed down, all the nymphs climb back up the silk(?) and scurry off (they don't fall unless knocked down). But Gongy ooth LOOK like they have an up and down. Idols don't. At least not that I can tell.

Anyone seen any pics or videos of nymphs hatching...?

A year or so ago, I sent a ghost ooth to a member (Jacksun) in Canada, and he ran a video stream on it so that we actually got to see the nymphs hatch. I was very relieved that the ooth was not a dud! Unfortunately, I can't find it on Search. Can an admin person help with that? Come to think of it., once the camera was taken down, the video was probably lost. I'm sure that there must be some on YouTube though, and there are plenty of pix by Yen and others.

 

[sporeworld]

Yeah - Ghosts are easy - they have that little zipper down the middle. I did find pics of Idol hatchings on Yens page, and it looked like they were all coming out of a common "crack". I'm guessing maybe they MADE the crack...?

 

[Zeede]

Is it wrong to assume that "mom" laid the ooth in the proper orientation?

I took a pic. The lid was flipped upside down so I could get both of them in the picture. It's blurry, but hopefully y'all can at least ID mom's specific species.

Cameron

 

[dgerndt]

Is it wrong to assume that "mom" laid the ooth in the proper orientation?

I took a pic. The lid was flipped upside down so I could get both of them in the picture. It's blurry, but hopefully y'all can at least ID mom's specific species.

Cameron

Well sometimes the mother can't find a stick or anything in the right position so she can't lay her eggs correctly. But it should be okay if the ooth isn't disturbed, I would assume. It's more important to find the right way when you order an ooth because it was detached from the original position.

 

[sporeworld]

Yeah - that looks right.

 

[LauraMG]

Congrats! Most ooths hatch in 4-6 weeks. Check out this thread for some tips on caring for it, if you haven't already. http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9597

 

[Zeede]

Update:

She has recently laid her third ooth. Does this mean she is fertile?

I read that even unfertilized females will lay an ooth, but what about three?

Cameron

Edit: Based on pictures, my mantis should be a Stagmomantis California. Not a huge shocker, given that I live in California.

It seems that the critical thing with ooths is the humidity. I spray every couple of days (the critter keeper is very ventilated, so I don't think much humidity is retained) mainly so she can lick water to stay hydrated, but I've noticed the first two ooths are a different shade of color compared to the brand new one. Is it common for them to slightly change color as they "dry"?