Greetings from another newbie!

[neburg964]

Hey Everyone!

My name is Marc and along with my wife PJ, we are a couple of fellow "mantiholics".

I first got into mantises when I was about 12 years old (I'm 41 now). My little sister and I caught one in the yard and brought it into the house to play with it. We were mesmerized by how it seemed to watch every move we made. Eventually, it started jumping off of our hands and onto our faces, which was just the neatest thing. Our mom saw this and, instead of her usual reaction to an insect in the house ("EEK! There's a bug in the house!!! Kill it!!!") she actually sat down and played with it with us, and told us all she knew about mantises. That's when we knew they were special...

Fast forward a few years and I'm telling this story to my wife, who usually reacts the same way to insects as my mom would. However, PJ was open-minded enough to let me bring a mantis into the house and the rest is history. We've been keeping them every year for the last couple of years.

We love their behavior, and how they actually seem to show affection towards us. They try to reach out and grab us as we walk past their cages; they occasionally will fly from their cages to us without any prompting. Most of the time, they make exaggerated motions to get our attention, or they bang on the sides of their cages demanding to be let out. Once out, the only place they seem content is sitting on our hands (or heads). They'll stay with us for hours and make no attempt to fly away.

Another thing we noticed is that they do not always show this "affection" towards strangers; while they readily accept a hand from me or my wife, they tend to withdraw or get defensive if a stranger's hand is offered. So there's definitely some recognition going on here. Has anyone ever done a study on this? Have any of you noted similar behavior?

I wish they lived longer than a year. We do get attached to them and it's always difficult to say goodbye every winter, but that's just nature. If we could somehow genetically alter a mantis so it had the lifespan of a cicada, we'd definitely have the best pet of all.

 

[Rick]

You must have found a species of rare, intelligent mantids. All the ones I have had are just interesting insects at best. No affection or anything like that. Maybe I am doing something wrong. So no, I have not noticed any behavior of which you speak of. Some exotic species live a long time compared to the US mantids you can find outside. Welcome.

 

[robo mantis]

my personal record for keeping them alive is over 2 years (it was a male budwing) he never died he would just sit there lol. well you got some cool mantids well good luck and welcome

 

[ponchot]

Hello & welcome,

I have also had some experience with personalities in Mantis's this year.

My group of Chineese Mantis's showed a wide variety of personality.

The males were generaly not social in any way, which I expected.

However the females were a different story all together.

My favorite Mantis which I named Juliet, was very gentle & always

seamed anxious to come to me. When given the choice of a branch

or my hand, she would always come to me. She would also never

go to another persons hand. I handled her almost every other

day her entire life, so this might have something to do with it.

Juliet would also set on my knee & seam to watch TV for almost

an hour from time to time. She would instantly face the TV

everytime.

Another one of my Mantis's was named Swearinger, & she was

a bit mean. I would often look at my Mantis's with a magnifying

glass. Only Swearinger would become angry when I looked at

her. One night, she actually approached the glass & looked

directly at me & then hit the glass 3times with one arm. She

paused, looking at me, & then repeated the action hitting the

glass 3times. As if showing me her anger for viewing her so

closely.

I know a lot of people would say this is random behavior, but

I disagree. From watching them so closely over 5months, I have

seen a lot of difference between a few of my Mantis's personalities.

Picture of Juliet at 3months & adult at 4months.

 

[Butterfly]

How cool!

My European female Thor has always been a friendly sort too. Ive never brought her out to watch TV though because of the cats. Mulder would looooove to snack on her, he almost got her once and thankfully I saw him pawing at her and rescued her. Fortunately his claws had just been trimmed otherwise Id have had a perforated Mantis.

The male iris I have isnt very social, he flies around too much when I handle him, and my other great big green gal is still getting used to captivity. She walks very fast when being handled and has almost fallen off a few dozen times, but shes only fallen once from about 4 inches.

Oh yeah she just laid her 5th ooth this past weekend too, Im hoping Ill have another few nymphs just as friendly as she was if not more so.