The point is, when a guy who has mostly 8-9 cm Gongylus tells you that they reach 12 cm, he is still BSing you.I've got 9cm and a 9.5 cm females, and a female (subadult now) that should be 8.5.
Many species don't grow as large in captivity depending on the conditions but even wild Gongylus don't exceed 10cm.
Why don't they grow larger in captivity? You'd think being constantly fed a healthy diet and being in a safe environment would allow them to grow to even bigger sizes than they would outdoors. Is it because of the small sizes of the enclosures? What exactly is inhibiting their ability to reach large sizes indoors?
I've seen some species grow larger if fed roaches versus crickets and grow larger with vitamin/calcium dusting but cage size is likely a factor as well.
It is most certainly not an urban legend and is very different for insects because the issue with fish is water quality. You'd be more accurate comparing apples and oranges than fish and mantids. In addition, you don't seem to understand that with fish, small cages most certainly result in stunting but it's an indirect result that can only be mitigated by constant fresh water flow and so cage size remains very significant to the hobbyist (just not the fishery that pumps in new water constantly).
I was very interested in this as I'd always heard and assumed the "urban legend" to be true. Did a Google out of curiosity, and the first result linked to this:
http://www.gsas.org/Articles/1998/size-myths.html
You may not see the reason for contradicting yourself but your information is bad.
I don't know whether to think cage size affects mantids or not. But from both Orin and Christians points, and from Googling for more info about it, I've come away with a more enlightened view on the effects of "tank size determining FISH size."
The worste part is I can easily prove your misunderstanding of the relationship to fish but then you'll just say, "well they're not mantids anyway," when you're the one who created the tangent. My original post explained that nutrition is very important, cage size just a minor aside.
What you said was false. Cage size does influence growth, in the case of some fish it's chemical rather than physical but stunting is a well documented phenomenon.
As long as you don't resort to name calling or go so far off on tangents that the topic was lost long ago you're safe.
On a lighter note... I have learned that friction increases size.I guess that when it comes to discussing the size, there is always going to be some friction between the guys... I think there is a lesson in that for all of us...
