Does anyone else's mantis do this?

[Silly~Chili]

Ya know, sometimes mantises can be pretty dumb, or mine is just special. Earlier today Chili was stalking a cricket and accidentally snatched up a pebble while her prey watched from the other end of the viv.

 

[Serle]

Quite humorous to watch , I have seen a mantis lung at a feeder , grab a raptor full of substrate and start chewing ..... S

 

[Serle]

That should be '' lunge '' at a feeder......... S

 

[Connor]

Yeah happens to me all the time. Makes me quite frustrated lol. My Lineola female will chew holes in my net cages.... 

 

[Jessie]

@Silly~Chili So you know your not really suppose to feed them crickets. It can make them sick, have black death or even a parasite.

 

[Connor]

@Jessie actually crickets are fine for a mantis. You just have to feed them well and quarantine them if you get them from the pet store.

 

[CosbyArt]

Guess I've been doing it wrong for several years then as I always feed my mantids (and many other pets) crickets without incident.

Funny how the cricket prey topic occasionally comes up at random as a "fact" lately, when it couldn't be further from the truth. Well kept crickets are 100% fine as mantid feeders as my many hundreds of mantids would attest to; although, a few mantid species prefer flying prey. A few mantid species natural hunting behavior is targeted to flying rather than crawling prey, but that has nothing to do with the cricket itself. Most mantid species though will eat either flying or crawling prey readily - with a few species that exclusively hunt crawling prey.

But yes mantids will often grab anything in the way when they are striking at their prey. Picking up material isn't related to intelligence, it simply means their aim was off or could not be avoided. Typically it is more of a issue for more aggressive individual mantids during feeding too.

 

[Krissim Klaw]

I've watched a couple of my mantises hanging near the ground, poop, see their turd bounce across the ground, and snatch it up thinking it is food . . . at least they tend to drop it after a bite or two . . . :nuke:

 

[Ocelotbren]

I've watched a couple of my mantises hanging near the ground, poop, see their turd bounce across the ground, and snatch it up thinking it is food . . . at least they tend to drop it after a bite or two . . . :nuke:

Hahaha wow.

 

[Bathory]

Ripley did this all the time, I don't know how much coconut husk she managed to eat during her short life but she always grabbed the substrate at least 3 times whenever I tried to feed her in the enclosure. Eventually I just resorted to taking her out before feeding because I couldn't deal haha

 

[Krissim Klaw]

Ripley did this all the time, I don't know how much coconut husk she managed to eat during her short life but she always grabbed the substrate at least 3 times whenever I tried to feed her in the enclosure. Eventually I just resorted to taking her out before feeding because I couldn't deal haha

I usually feed mine their food in little Dixie cups, unless I have some flying prey. I just hold the cup up to them and they reach in and snag their meal.