Huge size difference....

[yeatzee]

Well I currently have 4 adult female stagmomantis californica's ........and they all vary in size by quite a bit. here's a picture of my second biggest and smallest:



Is this normal? All look the same besides color differences and Im about 99% sure they are all stagmomantis species.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Dear me, other than being green they look just like my peacock mantis.

 

[Andrew]

It's perfectly normal. I find the occasional giant S. limbata as well, in various color forms.

 

[yeatzee]

It is obviously really really hard to keep them close to each other without eating eachother...especially because they are so hyper lol. Here's the best pic I could get of the smallest, second smallest, and second largest. It would have been chaos with the largest lol.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Are u sure they are not peacocks? and I see they are on the couch, are they watching the new Spongebob? :lol:

 

[yeatzee]

yea def. not peacocks.....I wish they were though lol. That would be sweet!

 

[cloud jaguar]

Wow, those are some super cool looking S. Californicas! I especially like how these mantises look with a thin thorax and flower bud-like abdomen. I think that beige one is really neat. My wife and I now have 3 female S. Californicas - despite all being green, one is 3" long and 2 of them are about 2" long - they must vary in size some like you say. Do you find these only on flowers? We only found them on rose and zinnia. The green ones have pink lateral lines on the bellies - are yours like that? What highlight colors does the tan one have, yellow? Have you successfully bred these in the past?

~Arkanis

 

[Rob Byatt]

Are u sure they are not peacocks? and I see they are on the couch, are they watching the new Spongebob? :lol:

They look absolutely nothing like Pseudempusa pinnapavonis It's like comparing Mantis religiosa to Cilnia humeralis

 

[hibiscusmile]

Well I dont see so good anymore. must be me old age! But the wings laying on the backs look the same to me. Need new glasses, Cokebottles, I heard that!

 

[Rick]

While that is a big difference from the two it happens. Are they from the same ooth? I will try to post a pic tonight of when that happened to me.

 

[yeatzee]

Wow, those are some super cool looking S. Californicas! I especially like how these mantises look with a thin thorax and flower bud-like abdomen. I think that beige one is really neat. My wife and I now have 3 female S. Californicas - despite all being green, one is 3" long and 2 of them are about 2" long - they must vary in size some like you say. Do you find these only on flowers? We only found them on rose and zinnia. The green ones have pink lateral lines on the bellies - are yours like that? What highlight colors does the tan one have, yellow? Have you successfully bred these in the past?~Arkanis

Thanks! I catch them anywere. One was walking on our grass in the middle of the night, one was on a palm tree, the rest were on flowers or leaves.

I currently have four ooth's from them right now, and have a recently mated female that im waiting for her to lay. So yea I breed em. They are a fun species, as they tackle anything (TRUST ME!). I've had my biggest grab my finger and try to eat me twice lol. And all of these were caught in the wild as nymphs originally. I just got back into the breading game

 

[Hypoponera]

While some size variation is normal, I have noticed that S. limbata tends to be noticibly larger then S. californica. Is it possible your larger females are S.limbata? Check the wing colors of all four. Are any of them lemon yellow? If so, those would be S. limbata.

 

[kamakiri]

Well that's a surprise for captive raised mantids! Did they have noticably different appetites as nymphs?

 

[cloud jaguar]

Hypoponera, I have a question: All of my S. Californicas have inner wings which are speckled clear and light yellow/green. ARE THESE CALIFORNICAs OR LIMTABAs ? How does the Californicas wings look if mine are limbatas?

 

[yeatzee]

I was told on these forums that they were S. Californicas so are the wings the only way to check if its S. limbata or s. cali ?

I've only seen my largest ones wings up and it was because she got them stuck in sticky goo......it was yellow with a black spot.

Because, all look exactly the same exterior wise besides size and color. How can I get them to get their wings up? They dont get scared of anything including me or my dog

 

[yeatzee]

Two of my females have laid ooths and they both look exactly the same...if I post picks will that help you classify them?

 

[Hypoponera]

When it comes to the females, the two species can only be seperated by the color of the hind wings. S. limbata wings are a bright lemon-yellow with lots of very small clear "windows". S. californica are brown, purple, or orange-ish. The easiest way to see the wings is to wait for the mantid to die of old age and then check em out. It is a bit more dificult when they are alive. I wrap my left hand around the mantid so that she can not move and her abdomen is exposed. I then carefully lift the fore wing about 1/2 inch with a pair of tweezers. If you have S.limbata, that lemon-yellow will be VERY obvious even without lifting the fore wing more then 1/2 inch.

Each species should produce some what distinctive ooths. But I have only seen S. limbata ooths and not S. californica. So I can not be certain I could ID them based on ooths alone.

 

[yeatzee]

Sweetness well they are all limbata! Well i've seen em drop from the top of their cages a couple times and Im pretty sure they had yellow wings

 

[cloud jaguar]

Well all of our 3 are S. Limbatas too! With those cool lemon and clear wings. One is 3" and 2 are 2" so apparently, these may have a tendency to differ majorly in size as shown too by Yeatzee's pics of his mantids. We found 2 more this season (1 died and 1 released) that were all S. Limbatas too! I guess we will have to look elsewhere for the elusive Californica, lol. Thanks Hypoponera.

Yeatzee, you mentioned the large one had spots on wings - this may be Mediterannean Mantis. I read on p. 28 of "Praying Mantids - Keeping Aliens" about Mediterranean Mantis - iris oratoria. Supposedly looks almost identical to Stagmomantis except that Mediterannean mantids have 5 spines on tibia instead of 4, in nymphs.

So I am guessing that the S. Californica is not in culture then?

~Arkanis