Color is genetic for the most part, but can change at later stages, my guess being due to the environment. With how light my boy is, I doubt he’ll gain color or darken up much if at all— he’s already gone through a good amount of molts from what the seller told me and he’s stayed that color, here’s to hoping he continues like that!
That sounds really pretty!! :0
I'm just curious how reliable genetics are for predicting the color of an adult mantis. Because I know genetics determine quite a lot seen as I've seen Orchids and Ghosts kept in the same environment being very different colors. It would be very cool to have different color forms of Giant Asian Mantises. Everywhere from a red like mine to a creamy green like yours.
Hopefully, it can be done without inbreeding. I know that inbreeding doesn't affect mantids that much but it could still weaken the population.
I still feel a bit too new to the mantiskeeping hobby to rear up a bunch of little mantids and ship them to sell, but it sounds like a really cool experiment/community project to do some day!
