ID?

[buddhistsoldier88]

how can i ID the sex and stage of my mantis before it is fully grown. i know that the size of a female is larger than that of a male...Is there a way to tell? Also, ihave all wildly caught mantids...one is considerably larger than the ohers...is there a way to tell what stage he is in? no wings but just shed.

 

[OGIGA]

Depending on how old they are, you can begin to determine their gender. It also depends on the species. Males have longer and skinnier abdomens and females have wider abdomens. I can s.e.x stagmomantis californicas at L4.

Determining the species while they're still young can be difficult. Some people are really good at this, but not me.

By the way, these word filters are really hitting a lot of false positives.

 

[Rick]

Well, in adults telling them apart is simple and nobody should have trouble doing it then. WIth nymphs it's a little trickier. You should not try to go off of size in this case. Counting abdomen segments from underneath is the best bet before they are adult. Females have six with the last segment being large. Males have more than six with the last segment being small.

 

[randyardvark]

depicting stadia is also difficult unless you have a comaprison ie you know how big they are when hatcling/ adult and taking rough guesses that way... in the ater stages you can tell by the wing buds if they ar touching then it will be a sub sub adult, if they are overlapping it will be a sub adult , and its fairly obvious if you have an adult and thats all i can add to what has already been said