Insects Mantises CANNOT eat?

[hysteresis]

I think its more important that the crix eat fresh vegies and cricket chow. Be well watered down so as to flush away gut bacteria from dirty enclosures at the pet store.

Keep your crix dry with tons of ventilation.

I think they can eat anything feeding on anything. I've seen vids were they eat around carrot in the gut.

 

[MintyWood826]

I fed a horn worm to a mantid and the mantid died a couple days later.  The hornworm was eating mulberry and I think its own feces. 

Was the hornworm wildcaught? If I recall correctly, they eat poisonous plants like tomato leaves.

 

[hysteresis]

Okay ill not consider horn worms for large mantids then. Too expensive anyway. At least here in  . 

 

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The horn worm I fed to my mantid was store bought.  I was assured it did not eat tomato leaves.  But if the horn worm ate its own feces, maybe the feces had too much bad bacteria? 

 

[melonberries]

Can the ovipositor on crickets be harmful to a mantid's digestive system if they ingest it? It looks really pointy and sharp like a needle.

 

[MantisGirl13]

Can the ovipositor on crickets be harmful to a mantid's digestive system if they ingest it? It looks really pointy and sharp like a needle.

No. They will chew it up when they eat it, and also, its not very sharp, just flexible.

- MantisGirl13

 

[MrZorak]

I tried once to feed a firefly to a mantis, who instantly rejected it after taking a bite. I learned that part of firefly self defense is that they taste absolutely terrible, so birds and other predators largely avoid them. Another feeder that did not work out welt was an ant. I once fed a small ant to a spiny flower mantis. The ant bit down on the forearm of the mantis. The mantis was able to eat the ant off of the forearm but I suspect if it were biting in a different spot, or if it was a bigger ant, there would have been a problem (the spiny was an L3 or so nymph at the time).