blazingazn
New member
hello everyone. i love this forum and i recently joined because i recently bought my first mantis. im so excited. i bought a baby mantis, not sure which instar it is in. is there a way to tell? it was sold to me as a creobroter gemmatus and it is about the length of one's fingernails and it is brown in color. i've been feeding it wingless fruit flies. it is currently housed in a 2.5 gallon tank. during feeding, i use a 6" cotton swab to crush the flies, then offer it directly to the mantis and she ( i think its a she) takes it readily. within the tank, there's a half inch of eco earth and some plastic plants for her to hide in. i mist only once a week and is currently kept at room temp (~72 degrees F). i tried to look up this particular species' care, one site said mist every 2 days as they like high humidity. but then a number of sites said misting once a week is sufficient. lots of conflicting info on other stuff as well. also, i notice that she shakes her abdomen from time to time. is this shivering? is she too cold? a sign of a molt? hopefully with my first mantis, i'll make very few mistakes. once again, i'd like to say that this forum is super!