I've recently had two of my Egyptain mantids molt into adults, luckily enough, one's male and one's female. However, they were both born from the same ooth and I was wondering, is it possible to breed a mantis with its sibling and will there be any ill effects on the offspring if I do this?
Can you breed mantids with their siblings?
- Thread starter uralowl
- Start date
Help Support Mantidforum:
kitkat39
Well-known member
Breed them with anyone you want in the family tree. As long as they are the same species. You will be overloaded with nymphs either way! HAVE FUN! =)
brancsikia339
Well-known member
I did it with blue flashes and had no ill effects
frogparty
Well-known member
LOL I love when people say that. F1 you probably wont notice, but several generations in you will see things like infertility, decreased ooth viability and size, and lower survival rate for nymphs. If your mantis are WC great, you have nymphs from a pairing most likely from non related animals. HOWEVER, if you have nymphs from a line that has been inbred for some time you are not doing the hobby any good by perpatuating an inbred line. I would try to obtain unrelated animals for breeding
Last edited by a moderator:
mantisboy
Well-known member
I read about this somewhere and it basically said that the different molt rates between males and females was natures of attempting to avoid inbreeding. I have reduced my stable of mantids from the same Ooth to 2 males and 3 females. When the males are mature I am setting them free, then I will catch some males in late August to breed with the females.
You have no proof of this. I have breed the same stock of chinese mantids for 8 gens and have not seen any of this.
frogparty
Well-known member
I have plenty of proof in the form of college level invertebrate zoology education. I will post references. I will need to dig that book out of storage.
How closely do you keep track of your #s
Its not going to happen all at once right away, but you will begin to see a deterioration of the reproductive viability of your strain over the course of time. Other aspects will happen more slowly, but will be noticable. If youre only working with a strain a few gen removed from WC, then fine.... but a line perpetually inbred with no influx of new genetics will eventually deteriorate
How closely do you keep track of your #s
Its not going to happen all at once right away, but you will begin to see a deterioration of the reproductive viability of your strain over the course of time. Other aspects will happen more slowly, but will be noticable. If youre only working with a strain a few gen removed from WC, then fine.... but a line perpetually inbred with no influx of new genetics will eventually deteriorate
Last edited by a moderator:
frogparty
Well-known member
But more important than that, you cannot make an argument for why you would PURPOSEFULLY continue to inbreed when you can easily find unrelated animals to breed. Overall if people want the mantis hobby to succeed long term as a captively sustainable one, then people should try harder to breed unrelated animals
kitkat39
Well-known member
I was actually referring to his Egyptian mantis. Those guys, I would probably WANT to see ill effects because they multiply like cockroaches and it gets a bit overwhelming.
There are other species that I've kept that seem to have died out due to too much inbreeding. The first few generations they'd be perfectly fine, but then for no reason the ooths stopped hatching or the hatch rates were much lower and the nymphs were much weaker.
There are other species that I've kept that seem to have died out due to too much inbreeding. The first few generations they'd be perfectly fine, but then for no reason the ooths stopped hatching or the hatch rates were much lower and the nymphs were much weaker.
frogparty
Well-known member
thank you.....I really hope people start to see the benefits of ensuring unrelated bloodlines.
I am not saying that you should use inbreeding as the preferred method. I am just saying that inbreeding has a greatly reduced effect on inverts. Though I would rather inbreed than mix stocks.
Sneaky123
Well-known member
I'm sure this is just a strange exception, but I bred some sibling mantids together and the next generation turned out stronger. They are growing at a very fast rate and are eating a LOT.
frogparty
Well-known member
If you have good stock information it would be a real benefit to the hobby!!!! Id love to know more location specific info on mantis in the hobby
Enter the IGM list. It is there for a reason.
frogparty
Well-known member
yeah, but not everyone provides that information with the animals you get. We have the same thing for the dart frog hobby and it is sorely under used.
Yes that is exactly right. I really wish people paid more attention to it.
Sneaky123
Well-known member
What's IGM?
Yes you should see effects. But exactly how long will this take with insects? I have bred mantids for more than eight generations without noticing a thing. I am willing to bet some of the species in culture right now are horribly inbred if no new stock is being imported. We've discussed the issue at length on here and I have yet to see anyone mention any ill effects that are noticeable. I am eagerly awaiting your references. When I took invert zoology we never even touched on the subject.
Thanks for all the replies, though I can't help but find it a bit amusing that this has turned into a debate, lol.
I'll still go ahead and interbreed my two mantids since I am planning to just sell off the ooth(s) anyway, Egyptian mantids are quite boring imho.
I'll still go ahead and interbreed my two mantids since I am planning to just sell off the ooth(s) anyway, Egyptian mantids are quite boring imho.
