Livemantis.com/buyprayingmantis.com is deffinitely a great commodity to our little hobby!!!! All my mantids arrived safely and ate as soon as I dropped the fruitfly in. They've got a great selection of legal mantids including the Bark Mantis and color changing mantid which no one else that I know of has! They also have probably the only all inclusive care guide unlike the majority of the sites i've visited. I know where I'll be buying more mantids....
This sounds to me like it was written by Sarah Elliot, owner of the website. They do not have a great selection, do not have Bark mantids, and what is a "color changing mantid" anyway?
Sarah Elliot - livemantis.com - buyprayingmantis.com
I ordered and paid for 4 Chinese mantises, and an order of melanogaster wingless fruit flies for them on July 24, 2008. After several polite and patient emails of inquiry about my order throughout the month of August went unanswered, I finally sent a formal-in-tone email requesting response forthwith about the status of my order on August 29th. The next day I finally got an unnecessarily snotty response from her, saying she does not "live" online, she's been busy, and the order was still coming.
I finally received the mantises on Sept. 4th. The mantises had to have been L1 or L2, they were sooo very tiny... much smaller than the L3 Ghosts I received recently from Peter. To her credit, she did include 3 extra ones, although one was dead on arrival smashed in the crease of the cup lid.
The melanogaster culture did not come until the next day on Sept. 5th, and it had
not one hatched fly in it, only pupae and culture medium. Luckily PetCo had D.hydei in stock, and I ran out and got them a couple of hours after the mantises arrived. The flys were about as big as the mantids, but they were able to catch and eat them luckily!
Two more emails inquiring about not getting the fruit flies on time to feed the mantises, and another asking what size the mantises were (L1, L2?) and why they could possibly be dying went unanswered. Unfortunately, all 6 Chinese nymphs had died within 5 days.
And the melanogaster fruit fly culture that I ordered from her didn't start hatching until 2 weeks later... :angry: useless.
Overall, the time between ordering and getting the order was unexpectedly long, communication was very poor, and there were not even any hatched fruit flies to feed the mantids in the culture which arrived the day
after the mantids arrived. I also think it was unprofessional to send such very young nymphs, knowing they would be at increased risk for surviving. I'm left with an impression of very unreliable and poor business practices. I will not order from her again, nor can I recommend her service.
