Florida bark mantis and Florida ant mantis

[yen_saw]

Sorry i have forgotten about this thread.... getting old

Nice pics Yen of some unusual mantids, shame about M maya.

Thanks Gary. Guess the maya species get stress up easily during shipment. No a good specimen for shipping.

Hello Yen,It is nice to see you M maya in your hands, I am sure you will get more.

I had M maya AKA Little Yucatan Mantid, don't know why Yucatan as it is found in Florida, but anyways.

Collecting this specie is difficult and you need agility and speed, as they are mostly ground dwedlers and sometimes in low shrubs and vegetation.

You can find them on the trail during the day,but they disappeared with incredible speed as you get closer.

I was lucky enough to get 2 specimens, I was lucky enought to get 2 different mantids of the same specie in other words a male and a female.

So what you have there is a male Yen.

I hope Paul gets more, if someone can get them to reproduce in captivity it is you!!!!!

Good luck.

francisco

M. maya was described from Yucatan peninsula first (hence the name!) and found afterwards in Florida. Some author argued that it has to be still thoroughly checked if it's the same species.

My guess is this species "hitch-hike" their way to America via transportation. If they are not native species originally.

So upon my trip back from Arizona, to my horror i lost an adult male bummer!! and another male has damaged eye :angry:

Then i lost a female, she escape from the cage....gah! Has Kenny been napping while feeding the mantis?!?! :angry:

But i have one adult female now. So despite small bud wing it is subadult stage for this species.

Another subadult female (Now i am sure they are subadult)

So to avoid the eye damage problem i have moved the sole subadult male into a larger cage.

Feeding on lobster roach

Now i can only hope they can breed.

 

[francisco]

Hello Yen,

You should have no problem mating these guys. I think they are really easy.

keep me posted when you get babies.

francisco

 

[etb99]

I really like the bark mantis, hope you manage to breed them. Any chance of an ooth reaching Europe?

 

[collinchang635]

I like the bark mantid. Hopefully you will manage to breed them. If you do, can you try to ship some ooths to Malaysia? How big does this species grow? Is it very aggressive?

 

[Christian]

can you try to ship some ooths to Malaysia?

As if there aren't enough native species there to be searched for... <_<

 

[idolomantis]

As if there aren't enough native species there to be searched for... <_<

that's true, in malaysia live the following mantis genuses:

Acromantis

Amantis

Amorphoscelis

Anaxarcha

Camelomantis

Deroplatys

Empusa

Euchomenella

Gonypeta

Hierodula

Humbertiella

Mantis

Paratoxodera

Rhombodera

Statilia

Tenodera

Theopropus

Toxodera

Tropidomantis

so get out and go look for them

 

[Christian]

Oh, there are a lot more...

 

[collinchang635]

Unfortunately I don't really have the eyes for mantid hunting. They are too well camoflauged. There are only Ant mantids and Tropidomantids around my area. Although I will be going to Cameron Highlands which is famous for having orchids and dead leave mantids.

 

[idolomantis]

Unfortunately I don't really have the eyes for mantid hunting. They are too well camoflauged. There are only Ant mantids and Tropidomantids around my area. Although I will be going to Cameron Highlands which is famous for having orchids and dead leave mantids.

eyes are over-rated. use a giant net.

 

[collinchang635]

eyes are over-rated. use a giant net.

Won't that damage the mantid?

 

[idolomantis]

Won't that damage the mantid?

ofcourse not.

catch them that way. or lure them with black light.

Ask rick or yen as they are pretty much the experts on this.

 

[collinchang635]

ofcourse not.catch them that way. or lure them with black light.

Ask rick or yen as they are pretty much the experts on this.

Unfortunately I don't have a black light so I don't have much choice but to use the net.

 

[yen_saw]

Hello Yen,You should have no problem mating these guys. I think they are really easy.

keep me posted when you get babies.

francisco

Well the male doesn't last very long for me as adult. I still have a subadult, finger crossed.

 

[yen_saw]

Took a long time before another male molted into adult. THe adult female has been "calling" for the past week i hope this male will settle down sooner and pair up with the 3-week-old adult female.

 

[collinchang635]

Hopefully you will succeed in mating this sp.

 

[ABbuggin]

I'm sure he will.

 

[idolomantis]

Hopefully you will succeed in mating this sp.

If anyone can it's yen...

Dude ###### i ain't a cheerleader...

 

[acerbity]

I had an adult male and female Gonatista Grisea last year and they wouldn't mate every time I paired them. The male ended up dying.

 

[yen_saw]

Thanks for having confidence on me, but the truth is this must be a tough species to breed in captivity as i haven't seen any pic of mating pair in captivity before from the internet, or even a male hanging on a female's back ha! I will try my best though this is like another idolomantis for me. Except that i have only 1 adult pair and a subadult female left, mistakes cost me 1 subadult female and 2 adult males but I learn from it. Hopefully i will get a mating pic of this species to share with everyone here. The adult male is slightly more than a week old now, i will try my luck one evening this weekend as they seems to be active mainly at night. Promise to keep an update here, whether i fail or succeed.

 

[yen_saw]

Tried to pair them up last weekend at evening as planned. I was afraid female will go straight to the male due to her aggresive nature but i was surprise with her tolerance. Male was wondering around her but never wanted to climb on her. So I let them together for the day. I checked on the cage again before going to sleep and saw the male is right on her back. Took couple of pics but they seems to be very nervous with my present so i let them go shortly.

The other female is still at subadult.... gosh this species take forever on the last molt. Been close to 2 months!