Candles, crickets, let the lovin begin...

[mantisboy]

Well it's another celebrated day of mating mantids. After pairing up David and Goliath, it was now time to pair up Latifah and Leonidas. Latifah has quickly become a member of the family and hangs out perched on a plant in the center of our coffee table. Sometimes she goes upstairs in the game room on a lampshade while the kids play X-Box.

Leonidas was very light in color when I caught him, almost translucent. So I am guessing he is not as mature as David, but over the last week or so he has become darker and shown quite an interest in the ladies. Unlike David, he was a little bashful and kept looking up at me, so after flashing a couple of stick diagrams and threatening that I would bring in all-to-willing David :angry: I had to intervene. I took a straw and gentle blew air on him to get him closer to Latifah.

As Latifah was hanging upside down on the tine of an antler, Leonidas was above her on the other side. A couple of gentle nudges and soon he was behind her, a couple of gentle taps of his antennae, a flutter of wings and he mounted her....backwards :blink:

After a minute or so he righted himself and they are locked up as I am writing this. Start time 5:40pm mst, so David and Goliath locked up for about 4 hours...so we'll see how they do. Of course, mating isn't fun at all without pics so I will take pics if they shift positions, they are on the backside of the antler tine right now.

Must be something in the air as I just noticed 2 hoppers mating as well, hmmm that didn't last long at all. Pics to follow....Avatar pic is our girl Latifah

 

[Seattle79]

Your the Mantis Love Guru! Lots of Mantis loving going on there in Idaho

-Kevin

 

[mantisboy]

Your the Mantis Love Guru! Lots of Mantis loving going on there in Idaho

-Kevin

yes.something..something...something....dark side

 

[Seattle79]

yes.something..something...something....dark side

Damn Ewoks keep getting into my cereal :angry:

 

[mantisboy]

Damn Ewoks keep getting into my cereal :angry:

Okay, another successful mating without a dead male! Seems like 4-5 hours has been the magic number on Religiosas. Funny how the females are like statues after the males hop off. Both of my females stayed in the exact same position after mating until I removed them from the tote. As with Goliath I misted Latifah lightly, visited with her for a minute of two and put her back in her housing. The males are all pumped up afterwards, probably because they are in a fleeing mode. I just have a feeling that this was Leonidas' first time, although pumped up (frantically running around) unlike David, when he went back into his housing he instantly settled down and started preening himself.

Another odd thing I noticed was Latifah appeared much lighter in color, it's been about 20 minutes and her color is returning. Most of the time the females hang upside down on the lids, but oddly enough after mating they hang upside down on the walls of their housings for a day. Perhaps this is because their abdomen are so swollen it's easier to balance or maybe it has something to do with fertilization i.e storing the males sperm?????

Latifah has just assumed this position on the side of her housing. Both my females have quite swollen abdomens right now that hang below where there lower legs attach to their bodies. Goliath more so since mating a couple of days ago, and Latifah has been getting bigger over the span of the last week, but I decided to mate her again just to make sure. Fact is they are wild and may have already mated. Who knows?

In the meantime all is quiet and as everybody appears to be in the resting position. Oops correction Latifah just grabbed a quick snack, I leave a small Hopper in the housing after mating which both females went after within 30 minutes. Looks like this time is no exception.