Freaky mantids

Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Yeah, I've seen these before.

Pictures like that give me a small glimpse of hope, that we won't be stuck with the same species forever.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
The variation amongst mantids has to be the greatest of all insects? which is nice.

Mother nature, i love this hobby :D

 
The Deroplatys species is called D. trigonodera. I have this species in stock for two years now (as seen in my signature) and it's one of the most difficult to breed mantids I ever had. But I was the first to breed it which isn't a bad thing either. ;)

 
out of interest Christian, why is this species so difficult to care/breed?

cheers

 
They arnt a cross breed as i'm sure you know :) , there are a few Deroplaty species, another one is D horificata, which i am yet to see, cant find a picture on the web at all! It sounds so interesting.

Typical : http://homepage3.nifty.com/mantis/img/horiBack.jpg i found one ! These seem fairly similar to D lobata at a glance exept D truncata & desiccata :) Are there many more types Christian?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
D. angustata

D. desiccata

D. gorochovi

D. lobata

D. moultoni

D. phillipinica

D. rhombica

D. sarawaca

D. shelfordi

D. trigonodera

D. truncata

source: "Mantodea Gottesanbeterinnen der Welt" , Rheinhard Ehrmann, NTV-Verlag 2002

I think the picture in the post above is a D. lobata, looking like the females I kept.

By the way, most of you know this site:

http://www.insect-sale.com/de/shop/store.asp?Item=Mantidae

Please check out "Deroplatys sp. 2". What is this???

regards,

tier

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ha, the last species is a good one, isn't it? :rolleyes:

Actually, they don't belong to the genus Deroplatys (as seen in the shape of the head, for instance), but to Parablepharis. There is only one species known a present, P. kuhlii. They really seem to be rather rare.

Regarding Deroplatys, I can offer some additional information. A recently described new species has to be added to the list, Deroplatys indica from, well, India. ;)

The name D. horrifica (not horrificata) is just a synonym of D. angustata. There was once a good photo of a female of this species on the net, but the site seems to have vanished. D. angustata resembles D. lobata, but has slightly different shaped pronotum and wings. Although lobata is highly variable, angustata has some distinct features which allow to separate it from lobata.

D. lobata and D. rhombica may be the same species, this may apply also to D. truncata and D. shelfordi.

D. sarawaca is a spectacular species, one of my all-time favorites, you have never seen anything like this before. There exists no photo of this species, in fact there seem to have been almost no records since its description some 115 years ago. I searched for it twice, but without success. I found D. trigonodera instead, which is almost a good...

The breeding turned out to be a challenge. Raising them is as easy as other species, but trying to pair them is frustrating. The males are only interested in female of a certain age, a certain silouette and only during a certain time of their life. I always keep dozens and dozens of adults only to have 2-3 females paired each generation. At moment I have 4 very large terraria filled up with females just two of which have copulated. I have one male left in this generation, when he also dies I will suddenly have 3 empty terraria... I have to buy more ethanol...
n040.gif


It's in every generation the same, I never know if it wasn't the last. Comparing to these ones, D. lobata is a beginner species.

 
Damn you Christian, as soon as I got off this computer I remembered no Deroplatys have head projections :angry: ;)

P. kuhlii is African isn't it ? From which country/region ?

Good luck with the D. trigonondera

 
OMG I MUST HAVE THAT MANTIS WHAT EVER THE heck THAT THING IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
Cheers Christian, Rob, I must have spelt D. horrifica four or five different ways before i finally copied and pasted it <_< .

Still that Parablepharis kuhlii is a stunner, i wonder how much of its rareity is down to its amazing camouflage, i would like to think that was it but what with habitat destruction and pollution who knows.

Deroplatys dont have head ornaments, nice one guys :)

D truncata were quite? common 20 years ago, i had a few but couldnt get them to notice one another let alone pair up.

Males were also hard to get hold of, i understand now that they too are incredably tricky.

D sarawaca interesting, i presume they are from Sarawak, Borneo?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
P. kuhlii is an SE Asian one. It occurs approximatively in the same regions as Deroplatys, but is much less frequent found in the collections of the dry insect sellers. You can estimate the abundance (or maybe the conspicuousness to the observer) of a certain species by the amount (and hence the price) of dried specimens offered. And by checking museum collections. Females are really rare, males are attracted to light as in other species and found frequently.

Thus, D. lobata is rather abundant in W Malaysia, much more abundant than desiccata, which is by far the most widespread Deroplatys in the hobby. This is because they are easy to breed. lobata was absent from the hobby for almost ten years, but has become common in the last few years. truncata and trigonodera are rare in W-Malaysia. The last one is more a Bornean species. However, please don't get the wrong impression: all Deroplatys are rare in the wild. Some are just even rarer...

I found three species so far, unfortunately just one truncata larva, so no breeding attempt could be started. Previous experiences show that they are rather hard to breed, maybe comparable to trigonodera.

I found an old (as far as I know the only one ever existing) drawing of D. sarawaca on the net. I am somewhat concerned about the conservation status of this species. There was no locus typicus except Sarawak given for the species with the original description so I cannot assume the degree of habitat destruction.

http://books.google.com/books?id=i4r0GiPPp...FdXwo#PPA243,M1

Go to page 243.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Latest posts

Top