I collabed a breeding project with my friend , and got a small hatch of nymph.
Development
Newly hatched nymphs would eat after 1 and a 1/2 days, newly hatched nymphs are already very big around 1cm and are capable of catching big fruit flies, and are capable to catching blue bottles on second instar.
This species get stressed easily and will do threat displays very often.
Usually takes around 6 month for them to mature, first molt will occur after 1-2 weeks after hatching.
You will know when that they will have their final molt soon when you see the budwing starts to become more visible and starting to get bigger, that is when you need to put them in a place with higher moist to avoid molting fails.
Housing
This species can be kept communally, but it is not recommended if you only have a small amount of nymph, they get quit active at night and in rare cases the active ones might bump the ones that are molting and it will lead to molting fails. For communal setup you would need a large tank of at least 30cm in length on each side, glass enclosures are not recommended as they are not really good at climbing smooth surfaces. A lot of twigs and grippy sticks needs to be put in the enclosure for moulting and climbing purpose.
For individual setup you can use a net cage with some sticks inside, with this method if you start with 20 nymphs you would have around 15-18 nice adults at the end.
Appearance
The first time seeing them might feel like seeing an origami mantis because the legs and thorax of idolo mantis are really thin.
Newly hatched Nymphs are black coloured around 1cm, after first molt the colour will become purple, white and pinkish.
They will turn into a brownish colour representing dry grass after 3rd molt, and they will stay in that colour all the way till subadult, but they have a very colourful blueish, red and purple ish colour in their inner predatory leg.
Idolomantis adults has a large variety of colours
Original colour- green mixed with white and a bit blue
Pale- bright white, light green
They also have a chance of turning into a turquoise kind of colour
I believe the more moist you give them the more colourful they are.
Care
Now when it comes to idolomantis people will think since they come from Africa they need to live in a very hot and dry environment, and that is the problem. Keep them at around 29 degree Celsius at day (if you have the opportunity give them some sunlight) and drop to 20 degree Celsius at night, they can also live in lower temperatures but it just slows down their metabolism and too cold or too hot could easily kill them. humidity should be 40%-60% lower at day and higher at night. Spray them with water every day, just make sure your enclosure has great ventilation, and moulting problem occurs because they don’t have enough humid and people often say they do not need any water at nymph stage. The rainfall in Kenya and Tanzania where they come from is not very low and plus a lot of idolomantis will live next to Great Lakes in Africa where the humidity is mild.
This is an aggressive species and will show a threat display even if you are just walking by, and handling them too much is not good especially for adults as it will shorten their life span.
Feeding
The best feeder is flying insects of course such as bees, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and flies. But if you don’t have access to these feeders red runner roaches also I would not recommend crickets and locust as it might make your idolomantis sick, idolomantis has really sensitive and weaker immune system than other mantises.
!!! They have a chance of overreacting if you try hand feeding them a roach or big prays
Breeding
Feed both of them nicely before putting them together, males might also hurt the female if not fed properly before mating.
Males are typically around 9-10cm, females are around 12-13cm, it might tricky for inexperienced keepers to sex them.
Males have long feather like antenne, they are capable of short distance fluttering/flying
Females have thin and shorter antenne.
if you keep a large amount of them in communal setup they will mate when it’s time, males and females would be sexually mature after 2-3 weeks, if you only have a small amount of adult and are really dedicated to breeding you should probably wait longer just incase they did not mature as usual and putting them together too early will increase chances of cannibalism (i normally wait for one month just incase).
I believe increasing the temp and opening UV lights might help with the mating process, female making mating calls is quit rare, but if females do it then the males could sense it within seconds and that would make pairing easier
Ooths
Very big eggs around 5cm long!
females should lay eggs within a month and will lay up to 5-10 ooths, incubation time is 5-7 weeks. around 40 nymph came out the first ooth, the next ooths she lays will be smaller and have less nymphs, you should remate the female if you want higher nymph amount in the future ooths, keep the ooths as the same condition as the adults with good ventilation and 40-60% for moisture
Conclusion
Main problem in keeping idolomantises are molting, breeding and hatching.
For molting you would need a net cage that is x3 times larger then the actual mantis and increase humidity to 60%.
Breeding- just put the male and females together when they are sexually mature, and mating would happen.
Hatching- there is really not a lot of things you can do to increase hatching rate. Males in captivity bred environment seems to do a bad job in fertilising the female, and that is the tricky part, all I can tell you is to try mimic the environment in Africa and hatching a captive bred ooth is mostly just luck.
Development
Newly hatched nymphs would eat after 1 and a 1/2 days, newly hatched nymphs are already very big around 1cm and are capable of catching big fruit flies, and are capable to catching blue bottles on second instar.
This species get stressed easily and will do threat displays very often.
Usually takes around 6 month for them to mature, first molt will occur after 1-2 weeks after hatching.
You will know when that they will have their final molt soon when you see the budwing starts to become more visible and starting to get bigger, that is when you need to put them in a place with higher moist to avoid molting fails.
Housing
This species can be kept communally, but it is not recommended if you only have a small amount of nymph, they get quit active at night and in rare cases the active ones might bump the ones that are molting and it will lead to molting fails. For communal setup you would need a large tank of at least 30cm in length on each side, glass enclosures are not recommended as they are not really good at climbing smooth surfaces. A lot of twigs and grippy sticks needs to be put in the enclosure for moulting and climbing purpose.
For individual setup you can use a net cage with some sticks inside, with this method if you start with 20 nymphs you would have around 15-18 nice adults at the end.
Appearance
The first time seeing them might feel like seeing an origami mantis because the legs and thorax of idolo mantis are really thin.
Newly hatched Nymphs are black coloured around 1cm, after first molt the colour will become purple, white and pinkish.
They will turn into a brownish colour representing dry grass after 3rd molt, and they will stay in that colour all the way till subadult, but they have a very colourful blueish, red and purple ish colour in their inner predatory leg.
Idolomantis adults has a large variety of colours
Original colour- green mixed with white and a bit blue
Pale- bright white, light green
They also have a chance of turning into a turquoise kind of colour
I believe the more moist you give them the more colourful they are.
Care
Now when it comes to idolomantis people will think since they come from Africa they need to live in a very hot and dry environment, and that is the problem. Keep them at around 29 degree Celsius at day (if you have the opportunity give them some sunlight) and drop to 20 degree Celsius at night, they can also live in lower temperatures but it just slows down their metabolism and too cold or too hot could easily kill them. humidity should be 40%-60% lower at day and higher at night. Spray them with water every day, just make sure your enclosure has great ventilation, and moulting problem occurs because they don’t have enough humid and people often say they do not need any water at nymph stage. The rainfall in Kenya and Tanzania where they come from is not very low and plus a lot of idolomantis will live next to Great Lakes in Africa where the humidity is mild.
This is an aggressive species and will show a threat display even if you are just walking by, and handling them too much is not good especially for adults as it will shorten their life span.
Feeding
The best feeder is flying insects of course such as bees, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and flies. But if you don’t have access to these feeders red runner roaches also I would not recommend crickets and locust as it might make your idolomantis sick, idolomantis has really sensitive and weaker immune system than other mantises.
!!! They have a chance of overreacting if you try hand feeding them a roach or big prays
Breeding
Feed both of them nicely before putting them together, males might also hurt the female if not fed properly before mating.
Males are typically around 9-10cm, females are around 12-13cm, it might tricky for inexperienced keepers to sex them.
Males have long feather like antenne, they are capable of short distance fluttering/flying
Females have thin and shorter antenne.
if you keep a large amount of them in communal setup they will mate when it’s time, males and females would be sexually mature after 2-3 weeks, if you only have a small amount of adult and are really dedicated to breeding you should probably wait longer just incase they did not mature as usual and putting them together too early will increase chances of cannibalism (i normally wait for one month just incase).
I believe increasing the temp and opening UV lights might help with the mating process, female making mating calls is quit rare, but if females do it then the males could sense it within seconds and that would make pairing easier
Ooths
Very big eggs around 5cm long!
females should lay eggs within a month and will lay up to 5-10 ooths, incubation time is 5-7 weeks. around 40 nymph came out the first ooth, the next ooths she lays will be smaller and have less nymphs, you should remate the female if you want higher nymph amount in the future ooths, keep the ooths as the same condition as the adults with good ventilation and 40-60% for moisture
Conclusion
Main problem in keeping idolomantises are molting, breeding and hatching.
For molting you would need a net cage that is x3 times larger then the actual mantis and increase humidity to 60%.
Breeding- just put the male and females together when they are sexually mature, and mating would happen.
Hatching- there is really not a lot of things you can do to increase hatching rate. Males in captivity bred environment seems to do a bad job in fertilising the female, and that is the tricky part, all I can tell you is to try mimic the environment in Africa and hatching a captive bred ooth is mostly just luck.
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