Hello mantid forum!

[Shinylarvitar97]

Hello everyone I've been on the mantid forum for a little while, but have not introduced myself. My name is Alberto and I live in Illinois. I'm 20 at the moment and I'm here because, you guessed it, I enjoy keeping and learning about mantids! Also I keep a lot of other inverts as well.

      I started off with roaches, because I reared them to feed to my reptiles. I then slowly became fascinated by all the other species of roaches and now 2+ years later I own 35+ different species and 50+ different inverts in general! Let's get back onto the main topic though haha!

      Mantids, I've loved mantids since I was very young. I'd find the invasive Chinese and European mantids and keep them. Not very long usually, as they were mainly adult males that had little time left anyway. Plus being a young boy with limited knowledge on them didn't help! Well now many many years later I've branched out in the invert hobby, and my latest obsession has been mantids. I really enjoy their predatory nature, watching them catch and consume other insects has really drawn me to them. I'm always learning and reading through the topics on the forum, picking up more and more info every day. I will continue to appreciate and raise mantids in my collection for years to come!

 

[Rick]

Welcome.

I'm originally from IL.

 

[rantology]

What's your favorite species of roach? Welcome to the forum!

 

[Connor]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Ocelotbren]

Welcome to the forum!  I also spent many hours reading through the forums when I started in the hobby.

 

[CosbyArt]

Hello Alberto and welcome to the forum

Plenty of roaches there for sure. If you haven't found our sister forum RoachForum.com it is a great place for roach matters. Nothing wrong in getting some local mantid species (native or naturalized). I collect some Carolina (Stagmomantis carolina) and lots of Chinese (Tenodera sinensis) here yearly.

 

[Sarah K]

Welcome!

 

[Shinylarvitar97]

Wow thanks everyone for the warm welcome! Oh yes CosbyArt I do the same on the roach forum! I've been there about a year. Great forum as well! My favorite species of roach at the moment would be Zebra roaches! Really awesome species, but excellent climbers! Yeah I used to find wild mantids all the time when I was younger, but I haven't seen nearly as many in recent years. So I've started getting into non native mantids. I recently had a female spiny flower mantis have it's final molt, but lack an adult/subadult male. I've heard they can be tricky to breed so I don't know if I should find a male for her. Plus it would be my 1st time doing so. I'll have a few weeks to decide as the molt was recent. Thanks again everyone and I'm glad to be a member.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Welcome. Spiney are very aggressive to the males.

 

[CosbyArt]

The Zebra roaches look great. Glad to see you have already found your way to the forum there as well.

I recently had a female spiny flower mantis have it's final molt, but lack an adult/subadult male. I've heard they can be tricky to breed so I don't know if I should find a male for her. Plus it would be my 1st time doing so. I'll have a few weeks to decide as the molt was recent.

At some point it will always be your first time breeding mantises.

If you feel like it is something you want to attempt, then do. Read various topics and articles you can about it, ask questions, and then decide. Often the worse case is you will have two pets and infertile ooths, or best case two pets and fertile ooths that carry on their parents legacy.