Mantis data collection

[archen]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of learning a new web application development framework and have decided to merge two of my interests: web development and mantids. The app is strictly for personal use at this point, and I have no designs on monetizing it. What I'm looking for from the community here are data points that would be interesting/beneficial to capture while raising mantises.

So far, I have the groundwork stitched together to track:

Individual mantises - name, sex, birth date, death date, dates molted (and to/from which instar), pictures, and a free-form section for notes

Breeds - avg life expectancy, temperature range, humidity range

Feeding habits - prey types at different instars, quantity accepted, quantity uneaten per feeding, date/time of feeding

Breeding - ooths laid, fertile ooths, bred-on-date, estimated or observed breeding time (from connection to completion), methods used

Prey - type (melanogaster, hydei, house, blue bottle, etc.), stock status (in stock, pupating, etc)

Habitats - dimensions, substrate, materials, which mantises are housed within, temperature/humidity

Ooths - laid on date, hatched on date, number of nymphs hatched, temperature/humidity kept at

This is all I can think of tracking off of the top of my head. Many statistics can be derived from the base data:

Life expectancy vs observed lifetime

Avg time between molts

When to purchase new prey

Etc.

Any other data or features that you (the community at large) think would be beneficial to track? For the technically inclined, I'm maintaining the code with GitHub, so feel free to check it out/contribute code directly (https://github.com/archen/mantistrack). It is not currently in a running state, but I'm targeting this weekend for the base features.

Constructive criticism and feedback is appreciated! Thanks everyone

- archen

 

[Ambystoma]

I will definitely try it out, once it is up an running. It sounds like a great idea, so long as the interface is simple and attractive!

 

[archen]

Thanks Ambystoma! I should mention that the goal is to generate accurate/observed data that should help in the creation and maintenance of care sheets.

Anyone else have some ideas on useful data? Considering my neophyte status, I assume that there is something I haven't considered.

 

[Paradoxica]

One thing to record in addition to hatch rate would be L1 mortality (in certain species).

 

[archen]

Great recommendation! I'll incorporate a field for that this weekend. I imagine that it would be much easier to track nymph mortality on a broader population than the individual mantis entries! Unless of course someone has devised a method to tag nymphs...

 

[archen]

Edit: double post, apologies

 

[archen]

Length measurement is another idea that just popped up that I missed on the first go-round. Any pointers on measuring the little guys? Is there a commonly accepted method?

 

[archen]

Well, to those that are interested: I have the baseline version of the web app up and running. Very barebones at this point, but if you'd like access to check it out, PM me and I'll give you the details.

Things on the roadmap:

Analytics (avg molt time, avg lifespan)

Prey tracking (feeding times/amounts/types)

Any suggestions will be considered

 

[archen]

well, I intended to make more progress on the app tonight, but hit a major snag with my infrastructure that required some serious overhaul. Everything is back up and running now. I'm considering pushing this up to a hosted solution so that more folks can access it once it's stable. I'd like to hit about 4-5 users on my server's copy before I shell out the cash to get it on a fully-public site so that I can a) justify the cost B) perform some load testing in an environment that I have full control over.

Currently implemented features:

Add/view mantises

Add/view photos and galleries for your mantises

Manage molt records (add a molt, edit molt)

This week I'll be adding some of the analytics and if all goes according to plan the "feeding" suite of features. Should become more useful at that point.

 

[archen]

well, that bespectacled smilee face was inadvertent, should be a 'b )'

 

[aesculpius]

This is an awesom idea and more of us should be participating.

 

[archen]

Thanks for the endorsement aesculpius! If anyone looks at this idea and thinks it's a little half-baked, I'd love to hear from you to understand what I can do to make it more useful. Still looking for more users/testers to see where it can be improved.

 

[aesculpius]

Partial data might be useful, as in a way to start records on a mantises part of the way into their life cycles

 

[nirotorin]

This sounds pretty cool. Do you think you might ever expand it to include more vivarium critters?

 

[archen]

Thanks for the feedback! As far as partials go:

It's currently possible to do so, but maybe improving the workflow would help make it more obvious? The real short-coming that I see is the molt functionality. When you click the "molt" button it automagically generates a molt record for the mantis with the timestamp set to the time that you push the button, and the from-instar field set to the most recent existing molt record's to-instar field. The mantis' current instar are also derived from the to-instar field of the most recent molt. So, the existing workaround would be to create a "false" molt record by clicking the button, then, using the drop down, go to molt history and edit the "fake" record to match the data that you need. If I have time tonight, I'll add an option to create a "historical" molt record that exposes all of the molt fields for manual editing off the get-go. Would that cover the gap you see? Or am I missing something else? Obviously, I'll have to add similar functionality for any other data that gets tied to the mantis (e.g., ooths laid).

@nirotorin

I hadn't considered it as I only raise mantises, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Once I'm done with a stable baseline v1.0 of the mantis app I'd consider adding more options. Maybe rename the app to vivtrack as opposed to mantis track.

 

[archen]

also, @nirotorin, because of the framework that I've chosen, adding new species to track wouldn't be too difficult, but would certainly require some input from the folks raising those species on what would be useful to track! If you have some species in mind, maybe start thinking about what kinds of data points you would like to record and compiling a list to send to me?

 

[nirotorin]

Ok, cool! That sounds like fun. I'll get that info to you later today. This definitely seems like something that could be useful for a lot of species in the vivarium hobby.

 

[archen]

new version pushed up today. Made some minor formatting changes that should unify the look a bit, but more importantly:

Officially added support for tracking feeder insects, containers, and attaching notes to just about anything!

After this goes through some stress testing we'll be much closer to the baseline. Next major things on the agenda:

automated user registration

Analytics (but for real this time, I'm going to add them)

Still looking for more users!

 

[archen]

User registration is live! Bear in mind that it hasn't been tested by more than one person, so if you run into any errors, please PM me for assistance. PM me for the link to the registration site.