European laying eggs *without* ooth!

[Guest_Gil Gear_*]

Hello everyone.

I have a wild caught european mantid that I've had for several months now. I kept her on a diet of meal worms and crickets, and I would ocassionaly give her flies, but after the first ooth I gave her crickets that were dusted with calcium (a *very* samll amount of calcium dust.)

Anyway, she layed two ooth, and the last one was layed almost a month ago. A couple of days ago I noticed three egg like things on the underside of her wing tip because she has very long wings. Yesterday they were still there and I also noticed that they hadn'tdried out yet. Apprx 30 minutes ago I looked in her cage and I now see almost 40 of these eggs on the bottom of her cage. I don't have a digital camera, so I can't take pics, but they appear to be eggs and not parasites that have pupated inside of her that she has now layed.

Has anyone ever had this happena nd can anyone explain why this happens?

Thanks.

 

[Rick]

Hello. Please make sure you register as a member.

I have had this happen once before. No idea why it happens though.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Tht sounds awful, hope I don't get to see it!

 

[Mantida]

Mantids don't need calcium dust, because they don't have any bone but exoskeleton. You can keep dusting them, but it won't really affect the health of the mantis. My Texicorn mantis did this a couple days ago and she is infertile. However, I only noticed one egg stuck to the underside of her wings, and it was dry. It was in a long oval shape.

I've read a few articles about mantids dropping the contents of their ootheca on the floor of the cage. Not entirely sure what causes it, but some females are pickier than others in choosing a spot to lay and may not have found *the* perfect spot and just gave up is what the book says, and it kind of makes sense I guess. Not sure what happened to my female though, because she only laid one little egg outside the ooth.

 

[mrblue]

i once had a p.wahlbergii female lay a row of eggs/ootheca with barely any "foam"/covering. it was pretty much just bare eggs on the branch. no idea why, her others were fine.

 

[sk8erkho]

But will those eggs hatch just out like that?? Last year I had an ooth which was like the last out of the six to hatch. It seemed to be taking an awful long time and I was curious whether it was ever going to hatch? Anyway, I read an article about carefully slicing an ooth to expose the egg to see if they were good or not. When I found some were still good and some not. It was suggested to then wrap the open side with cotton. Well, I did and they did hatch but I needed to stay as I was concerned with them getting caught in the fiber. Some did get caught so cotton is not the best material to use here. Anyone have suggestions for a better substitute or will they just hatch like that?

:mellow: