Is this wrong???

[mantisboy]

I have 5 Religiosa mantids, 2 females and 3 males housed in Beta-Fish Aquariums. One of my males has definitely noticed the female next to him. The female acts as if he isn't there, but he looks like a jackrabbit in spring. He starts pawing at the side of Aquarium and his antennae go crazy, would it be wrong to put these 2 together? When I take the females out of view he stops and looks at me like, "Hey, Dude don't do that". Will this help stimulate him before I put them together? She has just eaten a very large hopper, 2 crickets, and a small hopper within the last 24 hours. Of the 2 females, without doubt she is the most aggressive and I realize I may lose the male if I place him in with her. These are wild mantids so I don't want to deny him of his primary objective...mating.

I don't have a spare room to lose for 24 hours to give him a chance to escape. Any thoughts? I am also wondering if this might be over-stimulating him which might cause to not eat.

 

[MantidLord]

Not sure if your asking if it's wrong to tease the male to death or let them mate. If I were you, with a 3:2 ratio in favor of males, I'd put the male into the female enclosure and see what happens. Don't worry, you don't have to give up a room for a day. I've mated religiosa in small aquariums without any problems. If you do lose him, I'm sure he'd rather die and reproduce than live and never pass on his genes.

Oh, and you don't need to stimulate him that way either. Once he sees the female and approaches he's already stimulated. Coupled with the fact that she may have been producing pheromones that the male has picked up, though I don't know much about pheromones with mantids(neither does anyone really).

 

[mantisboy]

Well as it turns out I just happened to have a big Rubbermaid tote, so I put them in there together. After they both settled down her movement attracted his attention. He went to mount her and she was not receptive. Instead she went into defensive mode, flared her wings, and tried to attack him so I broke them apart. After letting them calm down a little and escorting them to their respected corners, I gave him a little prod with a chopstick, he tried to mount her again, but she was having none of it. She didn't attack him she just moved away from quickly. At a certain point they were more concerned with trying to climb out of the tote than mating.

So I returned them to their housings and gave them both a good misting down after all the excitement. I guess I will try again in a couple of days. I am all for letting nature take it's course but I don't want to issue him an instant death sentence unless he accomplishes his destiny. If he connects and loses his head I will consider it mission accomplished. I have also read that sometimes you can put 2 males with 1 female, but I don't know if that increases the odds of fertilization or just becomes more chaos. The female seemed more inclined to just want to get away, and after being rejected twice and attacked once, the male seemed like he was wasn't too interested in pursuing the matter any further.

I thought that either of them might try to fly, but neither did and now I have a better feel for how this is supposed to work. This is my first attempt at mating mantids, I made sure they were both well fed earlier today. So I guess I was the only one to lose virginity tonight and won't be so nervous not knowing what to expect the next time I attempt this. My kids sure got a kick out of it, especially when she caught the males attention and his head perked up then pursued her.

If the female is ready will she just settle down and allow him to "hop on board" so to speak?

 

[MantidLord]

Yes, the female may not be ready to mate. Give her a couple of days to a week. Once she is ready, she will barely notice the male jumping onto her. Keep her well fed when it is time to mate, and if you don't want to lose the male you can actually hand feed her while they are mating. You seem to have the basic idea down. Just make sure you put the male in the enclosure first. I do this so that he can be settled before the female is introduced. And during the time that it takes for her to find a nice perching spot, he may have already noticed her.

About putting two males in there, you can give it a shot. I've only done it once. One male mated with the female and the other male mated with her as soon as the first one finished. Though one of the males may get eaten or could stress the female out. For simplicities sake, I'd go one male at a time.

 

[Rick]

If it bothers you to see him go crazy, move them further apart or put something in between the cages.

 

[Ntsees]

Reminds me of my past experience with some of female European mantids. Somehow, some are just more hostile towards males on their backs (even though the females were bulging fat) compared to others. Either way, I still got mines to mate but the bad thing is that the female was VERY prone to turning around and grabbing the male. How I solved this - I gave her something else to focus on...feeding her during the hour long mating.

 

[mantisboy]

Reminds me of my past experience with some of female European mantids. Somehow, some are just more hostile towards males on their backs (even though the females were bulging fat) compared to others. Either way, I still got mines to mate but the bad thing is that the female was VERY prone to turning around and grabbing the male. How I solved this - I gave her something else to focus on...feeding her during the hour long mating.

Hey Rick just want you to know how much I appreciate your input. It doesn't bother me at all I just didn't know if it might cause him to not eat...I think it's kinda amusing. For all of things I was worried about, like an instant attack or having a couple mantids flying loose in my office. It was for the most part uneventful and pretty subdued. I find cleaning out their housing to be more of a chore than anything else since I have 2 of each sex to a housing separated by a divider while I keep a breeder male in a separate container.

Taking them out is easy and I let cruise around my office, but they really freak out going back in. I gave them new substrate (dirt, rocks), a new stick, and washed out their housing using water only. I dried out the housing using some paper towels then let them sit out for a half hour to air out. I guess that should be expected since they are wild mantids.

If I can get them to mate I will try and feed the female, but I don't know if she will eat an offering I give her since I have only had them for a week. Yesterday I waited until she had fed on really big hopper, then decided to put her together with the male. I also think that I will put a house plant or something in the middle of the tote for the female to climb onto. I didn't have anything for them to climb onto which left them both trying to climb the walls of the tote. It's a learning process...