making an orchid pink ?

[Johnald Chaffinch]

i noticed in some photos orchid mantids are sometimes pinkish and other times they have no pink. i have one and it has no pink, does anyone know if i can make it turn pink somehow?

 

[Andrew]

Up the humidity & temp.

 

[Johnald Chaffinch]

both? isnt just one of them the significant factor that determines the colour? or is it just regional colour variations of the species

 

[Executor of Fruit Flies]

House them with pink flowers. Make sure they're the real ones. Fake ones will work, but nowhere near as well as real ones. I know from experience, but with spiny flower mantises, though I'm sure the color change "activation" is similar. I couldn't get it to keep it's super pink tinge, however, since winter killed the pink-tree flowers i picked every now and then to change it's color. I have a couple now that have a slight color change from fake flowers, but it's very slight(one red, one yellow).

You may need a bigger cage for this. Perhaps one big enough to put a potted pink orchid(for best mimicking it's natural habitat) inside for it to sit on.

 

[Jwonni]

i've thought about getting an orchid for my orchid mantis but the stems are soooo long it would need a big home and the mantids at the moment are small

i may when i get one of the females to adulthood get her an orchid i bet it could look really good

 

[Rib]

that would be too late, mantids change colour very gradually over time. If you really want a pink Mantis, its best to introduce some pink to its enclosure sooner rather than later

 

[Jwonni]

me too late? i dont wanna change the colour i just meant as orcids look nice and it might be nice to have an orchifd mantis living on an orchid

 

[DeShawn]

I have tried so many different things, but have never really found anything that made a huge difference in color. They always seem to come out different. For instance, I had 6 female orchid mantids, all kept under the same conditions of 75-80°F, 60-65% humidity, and fed the same food. Out of the six, 4 got allot of pink on them and 2 remained mostly white. A few years ago under mostly the same conditions (different food), out of 8 females only 2 were pink and 1 was yellow (the only mostly yellow orchid I have ever had). The rest were white. I did not include anything in the containers except white paper towel for them to grip on.

Wahlbergii however were a bit different. Whatever color lid I had on the critter keepers was the color they turned (slightly). The colors I have seen are yellow, green, white, pink, black, and purple. The funny thing is they didn't always turn the color of the lid. I would often get a pink wahlbergii when using a purple or green lid, and vice versa. Go figure...

In my opinion, it is mostly due to genetics and humidity, as Andrew stated. No harm in trying the added plants though. Plus it looks so much cooler than my plain setups of a cup, lid, and a stick.

http://www.mantiskingdom.com/gallery/album...01/DSCN7481.JPG

 

[Rib]

me too late? i dont wanna change the colour i just meant as orcids look nice and it might be nice to have an orchifd mantis living on an orchid

sorry, I assumed it was you that started the thread. My bad

 

[Andrew]

With my female orchid, she did not change color until I turned up the humidity. After that, she turned a little more pink every day for a certain amount of time, and then the color change process became a lot slower.

Unfortunately, though, she died during her final molt...

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[Jodokohajjio]

Yeah, in most cases humidity is the determining factor in mantis color morph. Try experimenting with different humidity.

 

[Johnald Chaffinch]

righty, will do. is totally white now so will let ya know what i find out with mine. thanks.

 

[Johnald Chaffinch]

not managed to make my Hymenopus coronatus (orchid) pink after all this time, but have made one of my phyllocrania paradoxa's (ghosts) bright green with really high humidity.

i was wondering has anybody managed to make ghosts any other colours apart from green and brown? as i've seen photos of purple and red ones, has anybody managed to make that happen?

 

[Jwonni]

i've never even seen a pic of a ghost in green

 

[Johnald Chaffinch]

i've never even seen a pic of a ghost in green

here's some before and after pics of my ghost. all i did was increase humidity, and after next shed it did this:

(excuse the dry paint on the keyboard)

 

[Jwonni]

cheers m8

i think it may look better green

 

[Johnald Chaffinch]

just thought i'd show this too. this ghost is in same humidity and temp as the one that's gone fully green ( in pic before ) but is in a more brown leafy environment ( and is different *** ). it's at the same moult as the green one in the pic before but it looks like this instead. dramatic difference! :

what do people think this is due to ?

 

[ibanez_freak]

If your green ghost is female then ***. I kept mine the same humidity all the time and then the male changed very little while the female went from beige to green.

Cheers, Cameron.

 

[Lukony]

I've taken enough genetics classes to know this. Just breed them like you would a flower of the same species. An orchid can turn out to be many colors. But, if you want more pinks. Than breed the pinks with the pinks and the white with the white etc. It is a small coding in the DNA that makes the difference in the color I am guessing since the surroundings don't seem to affect very many mantids in their coloring. You are basically just basically using the genotype with the coloring. Mendelian had the basic concept to it all. Though he wasn't right on with all of it. I hope this helps some. I am guessing this would help in being more in control of the coloring. Eventually the more pinks you breed together, the stronger the blood line for it gets.