Ghostie's Pics Thread

[lancaster1313]

lol I swear I did the same thing the other day. I was looking at my little tiny shields when I peered into the mismolted deal leaf mantis cup and saw huge legs moving and almost ran for the border. lol That was way creepy.

:lol: My skin was crawling for a good 30 minutes after I realized it was my beloved Manty.

 

[Precarious]

Nice, man! Keep it going.

I'm a noob too, so it's good to see the progress (and mistakes) of others. Sounds like eveyone can expect a bad molt now and then.

I have:

5 violins

5 ghosts

2 gambians

6 Heterochaeta (occidentalis I think)

Only one bad molt so far (L5 violin) but I had to put it down today.

I have some mantis vids posted here if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/user/precarious333#p/u

Thanks for sharing!

 

[hibiscusmile]

Nightmare! haha, funny, I like sally!

 

[Ghostie]

Oh no!

I think Sally is one of my only male mantids! lol it figures I had to name him Sally instead of jack! Oh well it's gonna stick! A male named Sally!

Well he/she seems to eat and hang no problem even being crippled by two legs.

Guess I'll wait and see how the next molt goes. Will be a good learning experience for me.

Here he is munching a fly he caught himself!

 

[Ghostie]

Nice, man! Keep it going.

I'm a noob too, so it's good to see the progress (and mistakes) of others. Sounds like eveyone can expect a bad molt now and then.

I have:

5 violins

5 ghosts

2 gambians

6 Heterochaeta (occidentalis I think)

Only one bad molt so far (L5 violin) but I had to put it down today.

I have some mantis vids posted here if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/user/precarious333#p/u

Thanks for sharing!

Hahaha dude I laughed for the whole violin snoop dog video. lol

Great work. That was funny to a Violin owner.

 

[Ghostie]

My sister brought me over some new mantids last night!

I think these are the Mediterranean Mantis! Iris Oratoria?

Can anyone confirm? Thanks guys!

I received two of them that she caught in the wild. We are going to look for more to breed and then release back into my mother's garden where my sister found them!

One was quite a bit larger than the other! They are very active!

Here's the smaller one

..and the larger of the two!

Have some more pics of my orchid to upload too when I get around to it.

Also I convinced my ex to let me have the DSLR back! I will get it soon! Then I will have to purchase a zoom lens.

 

[Ghostie]

Ghost mantis eating a fly "on a steek!"

I think it's L4 now maybe.

 

[MantidLord]

Those aren't Iris oratoria. Probably a stagmomantis sp. If they were I. oratoria, they'd have the orange dot on the abdomen, and the abdomen shape would be different. Great pics though.

 

[Ghostie]

Interesting! I will have to look up what they are!

They have cool purple legs and I think a yellow-ish stripe going from their mandibles into their eyes sort of underneath.

Thanks, I forgot about that little orange dot on the Iris, I saw that last time I looked them up. You're right!

They are in fairly good condition too for being wild caught! I don't see any missing appendages. The larger of the two seems to be a female. I can't tell for sure to be honest on the really young ones just yet. Hard to clearly see the segments.

I may go look for more of them today and hope for a matching pair.

Would be cool to get some ooths and release more into the wild than I took.

 

[Ghostie]

Hmmm, come to think of it they look a lot like the European Mantis.

He also has a yellow stripe going form his mandibles into his eyes and purple at the base of his legs..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Mantid_August_2007-2.jpg/800px-Mantid_August_2007-2.jpg

 

[MantidLord]

Lol, I don't think they're Europeans either. I'm almost 100% positive they're Stagmomantis. At this age, they should have the black/white eyespot inside their forearm. I don't see it in your pics. Hope you can catch some more. They seem cool. Actually, I've never caught mantids that had significant defects, unless they were old and dying. I guess out in the wild, even a missing leg can get them killed. Good luck.

 

[Ghostie]

OK felt like an update today.

Have lots of larger mantis homes to build soon because everyone is getting bigger fast!

Gongy molt. I know not to get scared when I see this now. haha

Had a scare with a gongy today. I've affectionately come to know them as "gongylins". Gongylus gongylodes and volin stuck together.

I let a fairly large male out to play on my bed while cleaning and putting some mantids away and he went into the last place I would have thought he would! lol. A little tiny hole for a support pipe on my sleeping cot. :helpsmilie:

There is the hole he went in even before I pulled the bar out!

If you look close you can see his little gongy head in there lol sneaky one!

I had to pull the bar out of the loop and by this time Mr Gongy had gone all the way through to the other side thank goodness! Lol he popped his head out the other side and did the patented gongy dance and I just about fell over laughing. Funniest thing I ever seen a bug do in my life scare the heck out of me and come out playing peekaboo gongy! :clap:

So glad he didn't get squished in the bed!

Pics of my shield giving me a high five.

 

[Ghostie]

The Acromantis Magna from Yen. They're calming down tonight from a rough trip. They are very cool! I will make then a new larger home tomorrow with a split in the middle.

Pictures of my Creo from Mantis Place. Getting bigger! Two sheds since in my care. Never stinks! Always smells clean even with a dirty cage. Cleaned it's cage and added a new flower with which it blends in well.

 

[Ghostie]

S'more photos. Hehe.

First my "Orchie" from Rebecca came out to stretch and clean.

Then she had a few choice words to say to me. She's a loudmouth you know!

Then I got her to focus just long enough for two poses. Her "get the camera outta my face" pose

and her "I'm sad he's gonna put me away now" pose. "sniff sniff".

My little Shields are getting huge and eating houseflies already. Here's one giving me "the eye"

Here is the limbata that snatched a fly that happened to land on my thumb the other day. Couldn't have been more perfect. I have video of him eating it too for later when I make music to add to it. lol

 

[Ghostie]

One of my Chinese from Peter a day before it molted.

Cute lil fellows!

Some poor quality shots of two new ghosties. More on them later after I get to making my new ghost house.

Here is the other one. One of them is green. I really like the ghosts!

One of my Limbata eating a cricket. He barfed it up the next day but I cleaned his cage and now he's eating flies and no more barf. I think he simply over ate and got sick?

Part of "the fly experiment". More on that later..

 

[Ghostie]

Here goes some more pics.

This was my Idolos when I received them. Four live and one crumpled up dead.. along with a bunch of fruit fly parts. No worries! Put them into cups and got them well hydrated.

Here they were drinking off the napkins

Brought home a bunch of sticks from my mom's and chopped them up and put them in the cups to help the lil guys grip.

Made some screen lids. They grip these well.

 

[Ghostie]

Now for my Adventures in Mating Yen's Magnas hehe

Chasing each other around the mirror after a crawl around the bathroom sink

praying he doesn't get eaten.

They mounted but no mate. Too young I guess, the male kept trying to eat the females claws after he mounted even though I fed him well. I think female is receptive though..

My second try they are more calm with me and only went on the toilet paper roll this time. =P

.. and played ring around the rosey.

They both seem to know what is natural!

They mounted again but no mating and ended in ball or wings and legs haha. Had to separate them. I will wait another week or two and try again.

 

[Ghostie]

Keep the pictures coming full speed.

I believe this is a sub adult Stagmomantis Limbata but I'm a newbie and could be wrong!

Either way it is a very docile and fun mantis! It loves me! haha

I love it too!

One of my favorites caught in my families back yard!

Feel free to enlarge some of these pictures, the closeups came out nice.

I'm ready for my cluseup!

click picture to enlarge

I love how she sways her claws around and "plays" with me.

She is big! I think about 3"

 

[Precarious]

Nice clear pics!

Good to see your Idolos. I keep mine together.

 

[LauraMG]

That looks like stagmomantis sp. to me! I've got a male carolina that's almost an adult, but he's got black spots in his "armpits" and on his claws that you can see when he throws up his defensive pose. Very nice pictures! Don't know why I hadn't seen your thread before....