Mantid traps!

[MANTIS DUDE]

Hey, I live in a realy great place for mantids and im wondring if anyone knows how to make a mantid trap? Ive heardd various ways of catching insects in general, (like diging a big hole in the ground) but does anyone know of a trap devised spasificly for mantids? :huh:

 

[acerbity]

It's a legitimate question I suppose. If you can attract mantis food, you can attract mantids. Easiest way to find geckos is to wait out by my outside light at night, but if mantids did this I think the gecko would eat them as well.

Although I imagine you could attract males of a species if you kept a female in a small cage outside by means of pheromones.

 

[Christian]

There doesn't exist a mantid trap as such, but mantids are attracted to UV light like other insects. You will mostly get males but the females of some species may also occasionally be attracted.

The most successful ways to find mantids are searching by sight (needs some experience) and sweep-netting high grasses or herbs. Some species or instars are better found by eyesight, others by sweep-netting. Bark mantids are usually only found on bark, so searching the tree trunks for mantids may be useful as well.

 

[FitzWallace]

I never find them in the wild when I am looking for them...only by accident!