Costa Rica Mantis ID

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lizzyc1974

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Hi everyone,

We live in Costa Rica at about 4,000 ft. Altitude. My son found a mantis on our outside wall with an injured front arm. We took it in and have had her for about a month. I never thought I would have an insect pet, but here I am! Even with only 1 good arm she catches everything! I was wondering if you all might be able to help us identify her. We know she is a her because she laid a small ootheca last week. She is small, less than 2 inches. We have been feeding her flies, moths, and grasshoppers. We have to catch insects to feed her. Is this appropriate food? We feed her 1-2 insects per day.

Interestingly, we also have a number of very different looking mantids around our house. The second picture is of a large female mantis (about 3-4 inches) who has been hanging out for about a month. Each day she heads back up the wall from a nearby bush. She has laid several larger ootheca, and she tends to stay near them. We saw 2 others hatch, which was really cool. Any help in identifying her is appreciated! I have some better pictures of her with the ootheca on another camera. image.jpgimage.jpg

 
Nice! The first image some type of Phasmomantis? And the second is possibly Stagmomantis carolina. In the photos it looks like both of the mantids could eat more, but is that recently after laying an ootheca and they gradually gained more weight than in the photos (grow a larger abdomen from eating more) after feeding them? Yes, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, flies etc. are good to feed.

Are you ready to raise the nymphs that would hatch out of the ootheca the female laid?

 
At least the species Phasmomantis championi lives up in high altitude (4000ft). http://mantodea.speciesfile.org/Common/specimen/ShowSpecimen.aspx?Router=NewPage

(If the link above does not work go to Mantodea.SpeciesFile.org and search Phasmomantis and then click on Phasmomantis championi species and then click the "Specimen records" button and you will probably see:

"Other: note, CENTRAL AMERICA / Panama: V. de Chiriqui, 25-4000 ft •BMNH London — holotype female"

Also.. I saw an image in a picture book called "the smaller majority" of a mating pair of mostly brownish mantids that were labeled as Tauromantis championi from Costa Rica I think.

 
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happy1892 said:
Nice! The first image some type of Phasmomantis? And the second is possibly Stagmomantis carolina. In the photos it looks like both of the mantids could eat more, but is that recently after laying an ootheca and they gradually gained more weight than in the photos (grow a larger abdomen from eating more) after feeding them? Yes, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, flies etc. are good to feed.

Are you ready to raise the nymphs that would hatch out of the ootheca the female laid?
Click to expand...
Stagmomantis carolina? She lives in Costa Rica!
 
The one on the orange wall is wild. She just hangs out and has laid eggs on the wall, so she eats what she finds.

The small one we have in a jar with climbing sticks and lined with paper towels. I give it a little must daily. (Should I be misting less?)

When we found her she had a small black dot on her lower claw joint and she could not grab with it. From the black dot to the tip of her claw it seems to have atrophied and darkened. It has not spread up and she can use the rest of that arm. I wonder how well she would hunt in the wild, so that is why we kept her. I wouldn't mind releasing her if she has a chance in the wild. Any opinions? She hunts well in the jar and seems content.

How long do they usually live after laying the ootheca? We thought about trying to raise a nymph from one of the many oothecas we have, but I worry about providing a lot of small food. So far they just disperse into our garden. We have wild fruit flies here, but is it possible to raise them?

It is rainy season here now and also the first time we have seen so many mantids. I suspect this is the egg laying/mating season here.

This has been such a fascinating experience for us. I homeschool my son and we have turned this into such a learning experience. He is the one to figure out what the ootheca were. I may have a future entomologist on my hands! If you like insects Costa Rica is a great county to visit or live in.

 
I cannot make a guess if she will live or die in the wild if you released her. Mantises usually lay several oothecae before dying. Yes, I have raised wild Drosophila melanogaster on smashed apple, but it is hard to contain them since they fly. You might try cooling the wild D. melanogaster you breed before putting them into the baby mantises' cups or containers. I put some winged D. melanogaster in our refrigerator last night and they only stayed slow for a minute or less after being taken out. Is there anybody who can get you wingless Drosophila melanogaster in Costa Rica? Oh, and do you not have the fruit flies all year round and only just the summers?

lizzyc1974 said:
This has been such a fascinating experience for us. I homeschool my son and we have turned this into such a learning experience. He is the one to figure out what the ootheca were. I may have a future entomologist on my hands! If you like insects Costa Rica is a great county to visit or live in.
Click to expand...
Do you mean your son was the one to figure out what the ootheca was when he saw it?

 
Thanks for the information! We do have fruit flies year round. Right now it is actually what is considered "winter", the temperature doesn't change much but we get daily rain.

The nymphs sound like a lot of work since we can't purchase good. I think we will just capture another type of full grown mantis to observe for a while.

Yes, my son figured out what the ootheca were. We had seen them and thought maybe they were some sort of cocoon. Then he saw the mantis hanging around one and suggested it was a mantis egg case. Lo and behold he was right!

 
If you have fruit flies year round, then it could be easy to grow the baby mantids. Are the fruit flies numerous during the winter? When they swarm around a banana or another fruit you can capture them with a deli cup with a lid and then shake them until they stop moving much (stunned). Sometimes I kill them by shaking too hard, especially the bigger D. hydei get splattered easy when shaken.

 
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I have not seen a shield mantis yet. I have seen a small black leaf like mantis, a large grey/brown one as well as several different sized bright green. I am just now learning about them, so I will have to start taking more photos to try and identify. I live in a rural area on a river so we have a ton of insects here.

 
But I cannot find that Coptopteryx lives in Central America, Just South America such as Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina.

 
lizzyc1974 said:
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I'm probably wrong about this green female being a type of Phasmomantis. Phasmomantis sumichrasti have very different pronotum, I did not notice until recently. I just ran across this pic of Stagmomantis nuhua and that species is listed as being from Costa Rica (http://mantodea.speciesfile.org/Common/basic/Taxa.aspx?TaxonNameID=1183498):

https://www.facebook.com/159537874184235/photos/a.159841900820499.36829.159537874184235/429961057141914/?type=3&hc_location=ufi

And Phasmomantis championi:

http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/bca/navigation/bca_20_01_00/bca_20_01_00showplate.cfm?id=481

 
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