How to preserve a mantis?

shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

as110

New member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Our mantis died last night. Before I went to bed I tried to feed it, hung it on the branch, but she was swatting the leather jacket away and eventually kept falling off the branch on her back. I let her be and she was gone by the morning. My kids are sad. I would like to start a bug collection that might continue my kids' interest in learning about insects. I can't really find much information but I am really sleepy and don't want to keep looking on the internet anymore.

I found that some people put it in alcohol. I will do that this evening and see what happens if I don't get any response. How long do I need to keep it in there? Will that help stop decomposition? I don't want to see mold or smell anything weird. When I was a kid I had a bug collection and I obviously didn't do it right because they smelled bad and eventually rotted.

I can learn with my kids together. Can anyone help with this?

 
You can pin or you can preserve in alcohol. You want no less than 70% isopropyl or ethanol. For alcohol just get a jar and put it in there.

 
I use denatured alchohol (sp?),you get in those metal cans from the store,it does a decent job,but it does make them fade in color quite a bit,poke some holes in the middle area before you soak them in something like glasswear,and have a go,I'm thinking of trying to paint them after I preserve them to regain the color,but have yet to try this

 
If your mantis was a heavy female, it can look better for longer if you actually stuff her abdomen with cotton wool that is soaked in mothball solution.

If you want to mount her up, then the stuffing can keep her abdomen from shriveling up. The mothball solution is supposed to keep pests from eating her.

 
likebugs said:
If your mantis was a heavy female, it can look better for longer if you actually stuff her abdomen with cotton wool that is soaked in mothball solution.

If you want to mount her up, then the stuffing can keep her abdomen from shriveling up. The mothball solution is supposed to keep pests from eating her.
Click to expand...
Mothballs work, but if you put the specimens in a case with a foam lining the moth balls will dissolve the lining. For that reason I use those pest strips. You can remove them from the plastic holder and cut off a piece. Should last a few months.

 
I wish I had known about stuffing the abdomen before preparing mine. Other than minor issues like breaking off one of the little ovipositor bits, the only thing I wasn't happy about was the deflated abdomen. It's too brittle at this point to fix, but I'll keep it in mind for the next one.

I'm planning on doing a double mantis mount but (thankfully) one of my girls is still alive. I'll post pics and more details when it's all done.

 

Latest posts

Top