Had a good morning today!

[Durkin]

So I normally wake up between 1200-1400hrs unless I work a morning shift... At about 1230 the doorbell rang and I jumped up knowing what it was. ran downstairs with my pants barely on, and a T-shirt halfway pulled down... didin't want to miss the USPS guy... luckily my dad had already signed for the package and handed it to me so i could run back upstairs and open my new mantids...

Incase you didin't read my intro thread, I'm taking care of two ghosts for my friend living in CT... originally the plan was I'd order 3 Giant Asians, get 2 free, keep the two, and she'd take three back to CT... to make a long story short, I ended up getting 10... and now I have twelve... 8 Giant Asian, 2 Ghost, 2 Taiwan Flower... so.. I was prepared for 7 (5 Giant Asians, 2 Ghosts)... but.. whatever hah.. 8 hours later i have everyone fed (that ate) and in enclosures... and i was able to have dinner...

Here are some pictures:

The largest Giant Asian

The two brown Giant Asians...

One of my smaller ones

The Two Taiwan Flowers

And Another reason why today was Cool, I saw my first Moult!

Didn't witness it, but saw shortly after, this is the L4 Ghost, Kuzoe...

I also had a bit of fun feeding the mantids today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKS5yDZONlc

I'll post pictures of their enclosures tomorrow if you'd like to seem them, nothing too special. They do seem much happier than they were while in the shipping cups though...

Also, I'm pretty content on keeping the Ghosts and the Giant Asians, but if someone could give me some pointers on the Taiwan Flower nymphs... I don't want them to die... and would like any advice if possible.. they wouldn't eat today, but tomorrow i plan on tweezer feeding FFs and seeing how that goes...

 

[hibiscusmile]

Those are great pics Pat, the tiawan are probably getting ready to molt and will not eat if that is the case, they were eating in the cups when they left OHIO! Best to just watch them and offer the food in the enclosure, but if u dont see them eat, they will be molting soon!

 

[Durkin]

After what you said, I put the two taiwan flowers in separate clear low/wide 9oz cups with some of the aspen strands, and a small piece of moss that i made sure was a little damp to keep the moisture up incase they were molting. then i covered them with coffee filters (and poked a bunch of little holes to help with ventilation)... so I hope they do well.. at least now i can see what they are doing and don't have to disturb them.... and about eating, there were fly wings around the cup, but there were also a few dead FFs, so they ate, but not much... i'll keep you posted on how they do...

 

[Stuart89]

Nice mantids, and glad to see that picture of the ghost . Now I know that mine are L4 :lol: