Giant devil flower mantis

[MikhailsDinos]

(I. diabolica)

I'm very grateful, I just got some nymphs from yen, "Thank you Yen"! I was researching Tanzania, to find some ideas on this species. When I lived in Namibia Africa, I would see the rainy season during the summer months. Well I was thinking during this time they get very high humidity and high temperatures of course we all know this. I was searching the web and found a site with Tanzania weather on it and I was right. It looks like this species gets a lot of high temps, high humidity and rain. I'm guessing this species hatches out during the rainy season? Yen, brought up something very interesting about misting them at night for molting successfully. It makes a lot of since dew to the fact that where I grew up in Africa, we had the most rain come down during the nights. Okay, yes it's not the same area, but it's still the African continent.

I thought this might be interesting for the future breeders of this amazing species. I wish everyone good luck!

The link:

http://www.weatherintanzania.com/tanzania_weather.cfm

 

[Andrew]

Excellent information, thanks a bunch Mikhails!

 

[mrblue]

i have also read that they should be misted at night/lights out (high day temps, lower night temps with a humidity rise at night). as for when they hatch out in the wild, i don't know, but if they hatch out in the rainy season they might be a bit suspect? being straw/beige coloured when vegetation is sprouting green and colours is probably not such a good idea. but being adult during the rainy season would be a good idea. but i have never been to africa so thats just guessing.

 

[mrblue]

i have also read that they should be misted at night/lights out (high day temps, lower night temps with a humidity rise at night). as for when they hatch out in the wild, i don't know, but if they hatch out in the rainy season they might be a bit suspect? being straw/beige coloured when vegetation is sprouting green and colours is probably not such a good idea. but being adult during the rainy season would be a good idea. but i have never been to africa so thats just guessing.

 

[mrblue]

EDIT: double post, sorry, my wifi keeps cutting out.

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Thank you, Andrew!

Excellent information, thanks a bunch Mikhails!

 

[Malnra]

I use a fishtank to hold the cups with the idolo's and the humidity really rises once i kill the lights at night. That way I can skip the misting ;- )

Thanks for the link though !

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Very true, you could be right? I was just throwing it out there and seeing if we could come up with some sound stuff. If you look at the humidity chart you can see that they get high humidity throughout the year. I know the relative humidity rises at night almost to 100% in most tropical areas and that they would be safe from most predators. This could be one of the reason they do it at night. With one of the American species I own, the ootheca hatches one nymph every time or when I mist the container. I've been testing this out. I misted last month and found one nymph in the container, I did this a month later and another hatched out a few hours after misting. The species that does this for me is the American ground mantis (Litaneutria minor). Here in Colorado they get very dry weather, so my thought was that in the wild they hatch out a few hours after each rain, during the spring to get more of a chance surviving. This way they can eat all the tiny insects that come out as well. I remember back in Namibia Africa that when the rains came you would see many insects. This could mean that (I. diabolica) hatch out during the rainy season or like you said the adults are alive during this time getting the most food for breeding/growing and producing ootheca?

It's all just thoughts and speculations.

Thanks again

Mikhail

i have also read that they should be misted at night/lights out (high day temps, lower night temps with a humidity rise at night). as for when they hatch out in the wild, i don't know, but if they hatch out in the rainy season they might be a bit suspect? being straw/beige coloured when vegetation is sprouting green and colours is probably not such a good idea. but being adult during the rainy season would be a good idea. but i have never been to africa so thats just guessing.

 

[MikhailsDinos]

That sounds like a great idea. Let us know if it works?

I use a fishtank to hold the cups with the idolo's and the humidity really rises once i kill the lights at night. That way I can skip the misting ;- )Thanks for the link though !

 

[Malnra]

That sounds like a great idea. Let us know if it works?

absolutely will my friend .... we can all compare notes as each of ours grows ....

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Sound good and I agree, If we all work as a team we can keep this species going in captivity.

Thanks again

Mikhail

absolutely will my friend .... we can all compare notes as each of ours grows ....

 

[mrblue]

absolutely will my friend .... we can all compare notes as each of ours grows ....

i keep a blog of my experiences with this (and other) species, the link is in my signature. a couple of the other blogs also feature/will soon feature idolomantis too.

though i must say you usa kids have an advantage in that there are so many of you with idolomantis around the same age from yen, there doesnt seem to be quite as many of us here in the uk! <_<

 

[Andrew]

What's the temperature get to at night? I've moved my Idolomantis into my greenhouse and it drops into the 60's at night, though the humidity is very high.

Edit - Just looked at the link, my conditions appear to be fine.

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Thank you for the link.

Your Blog is very well done, you have some very nice species. I'm going to give this blog thing a try.

Thanks again

Mikhail

i keep a blog of my experiences with this (and other) species, the link is in my signature. a couple of the other blogs also feature/will soon feature idolomantis too. though i must say you usa kids have an advantage in that there are so many of you with idolomantis around the same age from yen, there doesnt seem to be quite as many of us here in the uk! <_<

 

[asdsdf]

Wow, that's great. Where would idolomorpha be located in Africa?