Dang, this kind of sucks

[MantidLord]

After tasting success at breeding my 3 Tenodera sinensis females. I ended up with about 5 ootheca total. I placed them on a shelf and misted frequently, waiting for the day that I'd wake up and see hundreds of little guys crawling around the tank. After waiting for a couple of months now, I decided to test the smallest ooth. I opened it up and saw the dreadful black eggs. :angry: Eventually I ended up opening all of the ooths, and they all had dried out eggs. I don't understand why this happened as I witnessed copulation and I made an effort to make sure they didn't dry out. <_<

Unfortunately this will end my chinese venture. They were an awesome species, and I wouldn't mind having them again, it's just I'm moving to New York soon to go to school and probably wouldn't be able to transport the little guys anyway. Which brings me to the silver lining part. I'm going to Cornell which is in upstate New York (where there's green!) and I got placed in the ecology dorms which allows students to have one pet (my tarantula) and 10 "small pets" (i.e. insects) . So does anyone know if mantids can be found in the area? It looks like a suitable habitat but I know the winters get ridiculously cold.

 

[thorhack]

Awh man that sounds awesome! I'm sure you can find them, in parks and such. If not you can definitely find some males around gas stations!

 

[MantidLord]

Thank you! If not I intend on bringing my Mediterraneans and ground mantids to campus to (hopefully some Europeans if I can find some in California). It's just if anything happens to my own stock, I would like there to be some wild native source available for me to catch. Hopefully I figure out where the gas station is

P.S your mantids' names are sick dude.

 

[guapoalto049]

Yes you can! My girlfriend goes to Ithaca, which you can see from Cornell. I have found two Chinese ooths in three years of being on campus there, and I haven't really done any looking.

 

[MantidLord]

Awesome! Thanks a lot man. I'll actually be looking sometimes, and always be keeping an eye out. Looks like I'll have an opportunity to try these guys out again. Thanks for the info.