Feeding my L4s

[shorty]

I now have eight L4 Hierodula Membranacea nymphs that I am caring for. I am going to attempt breeding for the first time when they are all adults. I am banking on having at least one sexed pair out of the bunch. It would be my luck to have them turn out to be eight males or eight females!

Anyway, right now I am feeding them houseflies and they are doing quite well. When I ordered them, they were all L3s and all but three have molted to L4. I am thinking about ordering another feeder that isn't too much of a hassle to care for so they get a variety of food. Unfortunately, here in Northern Pa it's getting quite cold out and there isn't much I can catch outside. Our local pet store carries crickets but I try to avoid them and I think crickets may be a bit large for L4s. Can anyone recommend a good feeder besides flies or crickets and perhaps a good place to order from? I searched around and all the sites I visited had feeders that were a bit big for this stage in their life-cycle. Keep in mind I use sphagnum moss as a substrate so they have to be insects that crawl around.

Also, if anyone here is selling an appropriate insect, feel free to message or e-mail me!

Thanks! Any help much appreciated.

 

[Rick]

Gonna be crickets or roaches. Nothing wrong with using crickets. They generally make up 90%+ of my mantids diet. Just be sure to get them from a well known online breeder and feed them well every other day when you get them which in turn will make them more nutritious for the mantids. Your female mantids are going to need a lot of food when they are adults so might be best to order a large batch. You should be able to sex those now.

http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7110

 

[shorty]

Well, it turns out I have eight male Hierodula membranacea L4 nymphs... :-/

Anyone have any L4 females you are willing to part with?

 

[Rick]

Well, it turns out I have eight male Hierodula membranacea L4 nymphs... :-/ Anyone have any L4 females you are willing to part with?

Are you sure? Either you are mistaken or are terribly unlucky.

 

[shorty]

Are you sure? Either you are mistaken or are terribly unlucky.

No, nevermind. I seem to mistaken. I looked at that picture of the sex organs wrong. I believe a few are female but it's very hard to distinguish by the number of segments. I've tried several times today and haven't got a clear answer. They are just still too small for my eyes to tell. If I had a magnifying glass I would be able to get a positive I.D. but I don't have one here. I will check again as they get bigger. I am just not very good at sexing because I've never really done it before. I've never really needed to but if I'm going to breed them I'm going to need to be able to sex them. Thanks for the help, though.

 

[Rick]

Those are probably the easiest to sex. I have sexed them as small as L2. If the last segment is large it is female. If there are many segments and the last ones are very small it is male. Posting a pic might be helpful.

 

[shorty]

Those are probably the easiest to sex. I have sexed them as small as L2. If the last segment is large it is female. If there are many segments and the last ones are very small it is male. Posting a pic might be helpful.

Good idea. I'll see if I can get a camera from someone as I don't personally own one. If I do find one, it's not gonna be anything special; a kodak easy-share or something like that. Hopefully the image will be clear enough. I'll see what I can do. Thanks again.

 

[nasty bugger]

If you borrow a digital camera, or can get digital images by using a cell phone camera, though macro doesn't seem to work well and the mega pixels aren't that high on camera phones, you can send the image to your email site and load them,

or if you borrow a camera you can buy a cheap card, or whatever memory it uses, and take it to sam's club or somewhere to have it put on some digital type media you can keep for yourself, or just have a friend put it on a cd or something, or email the images to you. You can then put em here.

I have two digital camera's, but the cable to connect them to the computer seems to walk off when I need it.

 

[shorty]

If you borrow a digital camera, or can get digital images by using a cell phone camera, though macro doesn't seem to work well and the mega pixels aren't that high on camera phones, you can send the image to your email site and load them,or if you borrow a camera you can buy a cheap card, or whatever memory it uses, and take it to sam's club or somewhere to have it put on some digital type media you can keep for yourself, or just have a friend put it on a cd or something, or email the images to you. You can then put em here.

I have two digital camera's, but the cable to connect them to the computer seems to walk off when I need it.

Thank you for the offer, but all of them are at least L6 now and I can sex them quite easily now that I have had a bit of experience since Nov. 9th. Update: all 8 are still alive and getting pretty big. There is one male in particular that is growing exponentially faster than the rest. I think he might have been a molt ahead of the rest when I got him because he is nearly twice the size of the biggest female I have. Also, I have since discovered that they are not actually H. membranacea, but rather S. lineola. So a lot has changed since I posted this thread a couple months ago.