D. lobata females and their will to protect their young.

[Aryia]

I personally found this very touching, so I decided to share this with everyone. I will never believe it if someone tried to tell me all bugs do not care about their offspring, because this one (consciously or unconsciously) goes above and beyond to protect her young. Not only does she shield her ootheca with her own body, but she also showed me that not all adult females will cannibalize on their young. Instead when her offspring hatched, she patiently stood there as they climbed all over and around her.

So here's what happened today: I sadly just found that my prized D. lobata female has passed away of old age. She lived a good 7 months as an adult and over the course of her life has given me three healthy and fertile oothecas, and even in her death she is holding on and protecting her fourth and final ootheca. I am still amazed by the dedication and patience D. lobata females put into protecting their ootheca, may she rest in peace.

 

[Rick]

Consider me a skeptic. I am not saying it isn't possible or isn't happening here, but I have not seen any studies that have focused on parental care in mantids. I don't think a large mantis such as Deroplatys would even attempt to eat their young as the newly hatched mantids are just simply too small to show any interest in. We tend to anthropomorphize our pets and I think the most simple explanation for what some consider parental care is that the mantis is confined to a small cage with the ooth, and therefore it seems the mantis is guarding the ooth when in reality it just doesn't have the space to move far away from it.

 

[Domanating]

Well I see it from another perspective. In the wild, mantids lay their eggs and go mind their own business afterwards. In this case she's captive and so forced to be around her ooth. Mantids usually ignore prey much smaller than them so this might be the case for not being interested in her young.

As an old female she would be too weak to feel bothered about tiny creatures wandering over her. As for holding on to the ootheca, she simply lost her strength and ended up dying in that curious position.

I had quite a few mantids dying while firmly clinging to the lid of the enclosure with all 6 legs holding on, like if they were frozen into place. Kind of funny in a way.

My mantids love to be around their ooths too because they are nice surfaces to hold on. They even rip off some chunks of foam from time to time.

Edit: Damn. Rick beat me to it, lol

 

[Rick]

I just did a quick search of the literature and did not see anything on parental care in mantids. Just because it has not been studied doesn't necessarily mean it does not exist. Science starts with an observation but I think we need to always be careful in interpreting what we observe. Behaviors observed in captivity are not necessarily representative of those found in the wild.

 

[dmina]

Interesting.. a lot of good points made... I have not been in this hobby long enough to add.. but I sure hope others chime in with their thoughts..

 

[Forcep]

No matter who said "all bugs do not care about their offspring", it sounds ridiculous to me... I never saw any scientific report on mantis, and personally I doubt if parental care is present in Mantodea. But their sister group, cockroaches, are famous for their parental care behavior. Some cockroaches such as Cryptocercus take care of their youngs for more than 3 years, which are longer than most birds and mammals. And eusocial insects are doing a even better job

 

[Rick]

No matter who said "all bugs do not care about their offspring", it sounds ridiculous to me... I never saw any scientific report on mantis, and personally I doubt if parental care is present in Mantodea. But their sister group, cockroaches, are famous for their parental care behavior. Some cockroaches such as Cryptocercus take care of their youngs for more than 3 years, which are longer than most birds and mammals. And eusocial insects are doing a even better job

Nobody here said there is no parental care in insects. As you mentioned, there most certainly is.

 

[Forcep]

Nobody here said there is no parental care in insects. As you mentioned, there must certainly is.

Yep, I'm just quoting the second sentence in OP's post

 

[Rick]

Yep, I'm just quoting the second sentence in OP's post

Ahh ok. Gotcha.

 

[sally]

And then there is my lovely "Mother of the year" Hymenopus coronatus female.... I missed an ooth that she had laid. It was hidden nicely in her enclosure. when I went to feed her one morning, she was just sitting there, picking off her newly hatched offspring one at a time

 

[Sticky]

Aria, I love your story! Never mind the science people, our mantids do have spirit and can be parents sometimes. You had a great one and I hope her legacy continues!

 

[SSimsswiSS]

I to find that Lobata females hang out inches from the ooths they lay. I keep my adult females in 18"x18"x4' tall screen enclosures. Ooths are usually laid in the mid range of cage on a branch. Females prior to laying often travel entire length of cage. And then hang out close to egg case once laid. This species has been the only very visible behavior I have seen in the many species I've kept over the year. While some flower species might stay in the general location they deposit their eggs a day or two, Lobata female will stay close by for weeks, never moving to far away.

Maybe there is a certain parasitic wasp in the wild, that the females guard against?

 

[Aryia]

Aye.. why do people love to ruin stories. I specifically stated that they may do it unconsciously because this behavior may have evolved because it is beneficial to them in some way. I never implied that she had feelings of love for her offspring. If you have kept D. lobata before you will know that they do exhibit ootheca guarding behavior, no matter what size of enclosure they are in. They will stand on top of their ootheca and block it with their bodies when you try to remove the ootheca and they will not move away from it until it has hatched. This behavior is consistent with all the females that I’ve had, but you are right in the aspect that it is an unusual behavior among mantises which is why you have to search specifically for Deroplatys and ootheca guarding behavior when you try to look online. There is no mistaking it when you see this behavior, they do not sit on top of their ootheca as they would a normal branch, and no matter how much you prod and annoy them, they will not move away.

 

[Aryia]

Actually, I managed to find an excerpt from the "The Praying Mantis" by Frederick R. Prete which similar observations with Tarachodes which cites a study that ootheca guarding does help against parasites.

 

[Aryia]

Another from The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behavior by Rod Preston-Mafham. The rest of the paragraph was cut off by a copyrighted image in google books, sorry.

 

[Rick]

Aye.. why do people love to ruin stories. I specifically stated that they may do it unconsciously because this behavior may have evolved because it is beneficial to them in some way. I never implied that she had feelings of love for her offspring.

Nobody was trying to ruin the story. Also, I don't believe anybody was implying feelings of love for the offspring. In most cases parental care is beneficial since it may improve the survival of offspring. Females in particular often invest heavily in offspring so parental care has evolved as a way to ensure offspring survival.

I've searched the literature a bit for parental care in mantids but I have never found anything. I never said it did not occur with this insect order but that I had never seen any scientific literature on the topic. The material you posted seems to indicate there has been some work done on this topic. I have the Prete book so I think I'l take a look and see if I can find that paper. If nobody has tested the parental care hypothesis in Deroplaty's then there is an opportunity there.

I am always skeptical when somebody claims something like this based on an observation of a captive animal for the reasons I stated in my first reply. I've seen many claims of ooth guarding in mantids on this board over the years.

 

[mantisman 230]

I have seen photos of other Deroplatys species "guarding" their ooths, this one is a female D. truncata

.

 

[twolfe]

Interesting discussion. Aryia, sorry about losing a favorite mantis. That is cool you got to see the babies crawl all over the female. I get nervous when I've placed L1s on adults to photograph them together. I've never lost one that way but know it's a possibility.

I have noticed some of my females guarding their ooths...sometimes for up to 3 days.

 

[PlayingMantis]

My R. stalli stayed right on her ooth, even after several days. She was free-ranging in my room so she could've gone anywhere she wanted to, but she stayed. I know this one instance does not really prove anything either way, but I thought it was an interesting observation.

My S. pretiosa female was in her enclosure when one of her ooths, which I thought was infertile so I left it in the container with her. She spent the better part of the day with her babies crawling all over her, and by the time I got home in the evening, she had eaten only one of her young. Not bad for a mantis that is normally extremely ravenous and enjoys devouring all her mates.