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nympho

nympho

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Sep 20, 2005
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Hi. Hello everyone. I am a member from over 10 years ago user namer 'nympho'. i used to post a lot on this forum but i got into keeping moths and spiders and stopped keeping mantids. for years subsequent to being a forum member here i posted on bugnation, under user name agrius

I was just looking at mantids for sale on ebay, for old times sake and to see what was available these days. There was idolomantis and popa spurca so i googled them to see any new rearing info and found this forum again. I had the vague memory that my old user name here was nympho, so i tried logging in with some also vaguely remembered passwords, not thinking it would work after so long, but it did. So just saying hi. I remember a few names.  it would be nice to  keep some mantids again. I did very well breeding ghost, orchid and wandering violin back in the day. i tried keeping idolomantis once but they died as subadults, falling during molting.

Maybe its time to try idolomantids again, and finally put my violin breeding expetise to use on 'the king of mantids' lol. I always wanted to keep those specifically,  but stock eluded me at the time.

 
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Welcome back! I hope you do get another mantis! If not, still hang around the Forum so you can answer others' questions!

- MantisGirl13

 
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Welcome back! I'm always happy to make more Mantid friends 😊

I'm not a pro, just a girl who loves her Orchids, so any experience you can share would be appreciated 

 
Graceface said:
Welcome back! I'm always happy to make more Mantid friends 😊

I'm not a pro, just a girl who loves her Orchids, so any experience you can share would be appreciated 
Click to expand...
Always commenting with such grace. LoL.

Grace, you're my go-to for orchid tips. Head on over to my status updates and tell me why my orchid nymphs are the stinkiest mantises I've ever had!  🤣

 
thanks alot guys. i'm far from an expert compared to some but i'll try to offer advice if i can remember anything :)

i've decided that i do want to keep mantids again. not sure which species to start with. i love them all.

hopefully i can collect some dragonfly nymphs again too. last summer i had a small aguarium with a bout 30 nymphs of the southern hawker. vicious little devils. it was fun watching them hatch out and fly off.

 
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yes, its a different experience from rearing mantids. very satisfying to mass rear a big batch of larvae, or work out how to breed difficult species. it was fun on bugnation when we had the deaths head hawkmoth rearing thread going. it was like a little club, everyone chipping in with their rearing tips

 
i just found this gongy ooth laying pic. eventually i got many ooths and many 100s of nymphs. i sold a ton of them

violinothapril09.jpg

 
Reading back through my old posts i had a lot of trouble getting them to lay ooths in any cage i tried. I think at least half the problem is they take quite along time before they are ready to lay. Also they seem quite environment sensitive, and need to be where they feel happiest and unfortuntely that seems to be in sunlight with some space around them. My female or females (cant remember if i had more than one) were not very happy in their small glass cage with mesh top, but they never where all that happy tbh. When i put them in the greenhouse on a hot day, on branches and a rug i humg up, they settled down, and after a couple hours of being undisturbed, started moving about in a coordinated new way, clearly examining the surface with their antennae or eyes. Then i knew they were getting ready to lay an ooth, which they did several times. If i remember right it was towards evening. Once i worked out they liked those conditions, i got a nice run of ooths. I think at least 10, maybe more. If you can give them something like that, then i think you can get her to lay easily. I suggest a large box like cage. They do not like glass or mesh sides much and if they get agitated, which they do easily, try to climb through. If i make another cage, for gongys or idolomantis it will have solid wooden sides and roof with grippy surfaces all round. Unfortunately they do seem to be quite easily disturbed and fussy about where they chose to perch.

 
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She is in a huge cage (I screened off one of my shelves and put lots of sticks in there) and it has mesh sides. I haven't disturbed her for over a week and she's been eggbound for a month or more.

- MantisGirl13

 
as long as she is warm (about 25c to 30c is enough imo), looks settled (perched in one spot for long periods, alert and feeding), i dont think you have a problem. she will lay when ready. make sure she has thick rough sticks, or pieces of bark, as in the photo above as they probably dont lay on thin ones. i dont think eggbound is an appropriate term (although i used it myself) as that assumes a problem. mine took a long time to lay by which i mean weeks.

 
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Ok, thank you! I will try keeping her warmer and see if that helps. 

- MantisGirl13

 

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