Mantid Fly?!?

[Mantis House]

Not sure if this topic should go here, since they’re not even a mantis, really, but has anyone had any experience with mandis flies? I found one a while back and was completely blown away at how cool they are. 

I read that they eat other insects, like a normal mantis, so I was wondering if anyone has tried keeping/breeding them before. I can’t find anywhere online that sells them, and there’s not a whole lot of info on them. I just think they’re amazing, because they look like a mantis, and a wasp, but they aren’t even closely related to either. 

I think they would be a cool feeder insect, for some of the bigger types of mantids. They are a very cool novelty that I think would be cool. But I’m not sure if they’d be worth keeping. I have seen a few down by my creek, so I should be able to catch at least a few, in hopes of breeding them

 

[Mystymantis]

Mantisflies are in the same Order of insects as lacewings, antlions, and dobsonflies, that is Order Neuroptera. I have only seen a very few. So they are pretty rare around where I live. I don't think they can be bred easily, if at all in an artificial way, because at least the kind I have seen the green mantisfly (Zeugomantispa minuta) is a parasitoid of spider eggs as a larvae, and as adults they are predatory on small insects.  As for other species of mantisflies I don't know their life cycles. They may be different? But information on them does seem sparse.

I do agree they are very cool looking. The first time I found one I thought it was a kind of mantis but found out that it was a mantisfly. But I don't think it is feasible to breed them.

If you are determined you should try to ID the kind of mantisfly you have and see what kind of lifecycle they have.

 

[Aristalochia]

Yeah, they are cool looking. As far as breeding, all mantisflies start out life in spider eggsacs, so that complicates things. I would love to try though since they seem like theyd be able to hunt all those annoying little flies that breed in my plants' soil (maybe kill off some of the fat spiders near my frog tanks too!) 

 

[MantisGirl13]

I have never seen a mantisfly, but they sound really neat! 

- MantisGirl13

 

[Aristalochia]

 Turns out, it might be easier than I thought..



taken from bugguide.net:

"Larvae in the subfamily Mantispinae are restricted to feeding on eggs within egg sacs of spiders. Larvae in the other more primitive subfamilies (i.e. our genera Plega and Nolima) have been reared on immatures of Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, spider eggs and paralyzed spiders removed from sphecid cells."

So please update if you end up giving it a go. I for one, would be interested. I love weird things like this

They have some ID information that may  be of help too.