Florida bark mantis and Florida ant mantis

[hibiscusmile]

The female is so beautiful, and she looks like she has on a gold ballgown!

 

[etb99]

Very nice species. Looks like you are getting there

 

[yen_saw]

The female is so beautiful, and she looks like she has on a gold ballgown!

Well my wife thinks they looks like roaches :angry:

Very nice species. Looks like you are getting there

Thanks. Hopefully she has been mated. Been seeing the male climbing up on her for the past few days, usually during evening time. I leave them alone but wonder how long wil the male keep his head intact

 

[yen_saw]

The male "expired" just like another adult male that last only 2 weeks. Wonder why the subadult takes many weeks to mature but couldn't last very long as adult. Well i have no more male and not sure if they've mated. But a day before he die i saw him on the female's back again. The next day he seems lethagic and fall to the cage bottom, and the following day the female lays an ooth.

 

[acerbity]

Seems like "getting the job done" took everything out of him.

If she laid an ooth the next day it sounds optimistic though!

The infertile Ooths my female laid were always much smaller so I would bet that one is good.

 

[yen_saw]

I hope so acerbity. For now i can only wait. Thanks for the info.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

It's odd that your males die so quickly, what are the temps and such you are keeping them at. I've had several male grisea and all of them that reached adulthood(mine usually died as nymphs during mismolts) lived for at least two months. And my female lived six months as adult. I also haven't had issues getting them to breed. I've tried twice and both times they began mating only a couple minutes after I placed them in the same enclosure. The process took about two hours, then I separated them again. However I hadn't even tried to mate them till both were adult for about three weeks.

 

[yen_saw]

Hi Kirk, I kept both male and female around 85F/70%. They live a long time as subadult (about 1.5-2 months). Adult male last only 2-3 weeks but female seems to be robust and should live longer. Was the male you had from wild caught or captive bred?

However I hadn't even tried to mate them till both were adult for about three weeks.

As long as female is showing sign of calling she is ready to mate, regardless of how old she is as adult.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

My male was wild caught at sub adult but I kept temperatures lower. Room temp was about 70-75 farenheight(I know the spelling is off but I don't feel like looking it up) with a heat lamp above the cage, but the lamp wasn't making a significant temp difference, and was always off at night. I do believe members of this species survive the winters here in florida as long as it doesn't freeze, and the lowered temperatures don't seem to bother them. And another funny story about when mine mated, the female actually attacked the male even though she was well fed, but with a few swipes of his claws and a quick pounce that sent them both rolling he managed to mount her and almost immediately began mating.

 

[francisco]

Hello All,

A few years ago I got a few G grisea, I was succesful at breeding them and getting nymphs as well as a few ooth, that I send to Germany.

I think Insektus (Stephan) got some from me.

They are not hard to mate, the males are shy but they will climb on the females with no problem.

Like Yen said they are very tolerant of each other.

I am glad Yen is documenting his experience with them.

Good luck Yen. My female laid a total of 5 ooth.

I kept 2 and send 3 to Europe.

francisco

 

[yen_saw]

FT and Kirk, thanks for the info.

The lone female is still feeding fine and has produced another oothecae only a week after the first, so i seldom feed her now and she hasn't produced any further ootheca since. If the first ooth hatched i will resume power feeding her again. the first ootheca is about 20-day old as of today.

 

[Katnapper]

Thank you, Yen, for sharing the Gonatista grisea pics and information. I wish you much luck and success in hatching a hopefully fertile ooth!

 

[yen_saw]

Thank you, Yen, for sharing the Gonatista grisea pics and information. I wish you much luck and success in hatching a hopefully fertile ooth!

Thanks Katnapper, hopefully the next time i post it will be showing the hatchling, or nothing at all

 

[acerbity]

Unfortunately this year I've only found one Grisea in my neighborhood, and it was dead and flat on the sidewalk

I know there is a population in my neighborhood, but I only ever find the dead ones. When I sweep net or check tree bark I never see a thing. I wonder if they are way up in the trees <_<

Edit: Here's a female I acquired last year, hopefully the early cold snap in Florida isn't killing them all off earlier in the year.

 

[Mantis Keeper]

I think your on to something with your mention of them living in the tops of trees. The time that I found the most in the shortest period of searching was when I looked in a lot with freshly downed pine trees. I caught 7 in about twenty minutes that day, ended up keeping just one male and one female(the ones that looked the coolest, I favor the ones with green blotches). And of all the others I caught, or even just spotted they have been on trees, sometimes pine, sometimes oak. And the adults seem to usually be just barely in my reach or just out of my reach. Nymphs I find closer to the ground.

 

[yen_saw]

I must have been away for too long, almost giving up finding this thread and start a new one.

The good news is the ootheca hatched so they did mate. Bad news is i haven't been hand feeding her (for some reason she is very picky with food) after her second ootheca so she appear to die from starvation. Bummer!! Been very busy and some of you know my situation well.

About 30-40 nymphs hatched. Here is some of them with the hatched out ooth.

Cute tiny little barky

One thing though, the hatchling appear to be kind of lethargic, i hope it is not because of the low humidity in my bug room.

 

[The_Asa]

so cute! Congratulations on the hatching!

 

[ABbuggin]

Nice! I bet your relieved.

 

[Peter Clausen]

Very neat, Yen! I've never seen that species before. Florida is a long way from Oregon, I guess.

Thanks for finding the thread again!

 

[hibiscusmile]

:lol: ha Yen, it's just that their little heads are too big for their bodies, can't move as well with all that weight!