do mantids urinate?

[Christian]

After drying, it looks like white powder. I never saw mantids doing this for defence.

That's why I think it's ureatic acid.

 

[Rick]

Never saw a mantids spraying as a defense either. No idea where you guys got that idea from.

 

[idolomantis]

Never saw a mantids spraying as a defense either. No idea where you guys got that idea from.

me neither, i only had bite and claw attacks orr "the old fashiond way"

 

[MANTIS DUDE]

YUCK!

 

[joel]

thanks for your input,

all of you

when he sprayed at my girlfriend it went on her hand,

and she said it started stinging before she washed it off?

could this point towards the acid theory?

p.s the stuff im talking bout did fire quite far, just under a foot or so

p.p.s i do feed him quite often he is often quite 'bloated'

thank for your help il try the feeding him less as he has also turned his nose up twice at food recently

but eaten in between so is not shedding

thanks again!!! this site has helped me so much as a beginner!

joel

 

[libertine101]

My mantis has done this several times while I have been handling her, I thought maybe it was just the mantids way of getting rid of excess fluid. Wouldnt it aim the fluid at the threating stimuli if it was a defense mechanism? As far as I can see it just releases its load in any old direction.

 

[Meiji]

An hour ago, in response to being disturbed, my over-fed sub-adult Chinese Mantis shot a drop of a urine-like substance backwards with a fair amount of force. Should I rub his nose in it? (kidding)

 

[Peter Clausen]

I rarely witness the event, but the residue is a sign that it happens fairly often.

However, two nights ago I did see an adult female H. coronatus (Orchid Mantis) do this. She was already well fed, but I fed her 2 more good-sized roaches. While she was eating the second, I put a male on her back. He hunkered down as males do and began the occasional drumming behavior. Soon, she finished the second roach. I had introduced a few more roaches to the enclosure for her to feed on if she became hungry (a good alternative to that bite-sized meal riding on her back!).

A short while later the male was getting nowhere, but she didn't seem to be upset about his presence so I left him. She had managed to capture another roach. I'm always a bit relieved to see her eating something ELSE, because it's the only time I truly feel the male is safe. As I watched and dreamed a bit about a successful pairing, she leaned her abdomen over the side of her wings and out came the translucent liquid. As Christian said, it dried into a powdery liquid (now two days later). This particular cage is screened on the top and on two sides. All this ventilation contributes towards drying the excretion. In my plastic enclosures with minimal ventilation the liquid will begin to yellow and will often turn brown if I don't clean the inner surfaces. Sometimes people don't notice this liquid until it begins to change color and then they believe their mantis is directly excreting brown liquid. (other times the mantises do excrete brown liquid, but that's a different situation.)

Please note the spray patterns will vary with the size and shape of your cage and of course the distance the spray travels. This particular enclosure is 12 X 12 X 18 inches and the female was near the top. You can see that gravity settled the solid portions of the liquid towards the bottom as it dried. (there are also some water stains all over the glass).

So, I would imagine that it did happen because there was no additonal space in her gut and it's a lot quicker to evacuate liquids than solids.

 

[hibiscusmile]

:blink: Well that explains that! Now I know what I am looking at. I thought it was poo! It smells sometimes like pee when their cages get dirty ( course u know mine don't get dirty :lol: ) hah! But never happened in my hand before, for which I am thankful.

 

[collinchang635]

I've seen that stuff on the inside of my mantids cage but I never knew it was excess fluid. Thanks for the info BTW Can someone check out my topic about the tropidomantis. The topic is found in 'General Mantid Discussions'. I need a fast reply because i'm afraid she might lay another ooth