feeding L1 african flower mantis (pseudocreobroter)

[ibanez_freak]

hi,

Can any one help me out as I have a flower mantis ootheca expected to hatch in a 2-4 weeks and I'm not sure as to whether they will take fruit flies since I think my L2 flower mantis seemed rather small. The L2 ones did take them though but I'm not sure if the L1 mantis will take them. Any thing smaller that someone can recommend to me if fruit flies are too big.

Cheers, I.F.

p.s I also have some very small white things a little bigger that grains of sand which are crawling around in the fruit fly cultures. Are these fruit flies grubs and will they grow into fruit flies? Also I'm in the UK so can't get imported items. Cheers.

 

[PseudoDave]

Hi,

Those little white things in the culture may be maggots, they may be mites, chances are they're maggots though if the culture is a good one. If they are indeed the 'grub' of the fruitfly, they should pupate and turn into flies eventually.

I have always used fruitflies in raising young mantids of any species. There are some that don't seem keen on tackling a pretty beafy looking fruitfly at first, but when they get hungry enough, they do eat them. I've fed countless hymenopus coronatus this way along with many much larger species. I'm sure there are people here that may have some smaller sized suggestions and hopefully they'll be helpful for you, but if you cannot obtain anything smaller then the fly's should do just fine. Best of luck.

Dave

 

[Jackson]

Theres a certain species of fruit fly that is 1/16 inch rather than 1/8 inch and is still wingless. i'll try to find it.