Mantis holding food, but not eating?

[uralowl]

Hey,

I'm fairly new to praying mantis keeping, though have reared an Indian Flower Mantis from L2 to adult. I've got about 8 mantids at the moment, 5 of which often catch food and start eating, but then stop and just sit there for hours with the food in their grasps, but they won't do anything. When my other 3 mantids aren't too hungry, they just drop their half eaten cricket or fly onto the ground and proceed to groom themselves.

The mantids that are doing this are 4 Egyptian Praying Mantis L1/L2 nymphs and a L3 African Lined Mantis. I'm just wondering if anyone else's mantids did this and if anyone knows why they do it. Are they simply not hungry and preserving the fruit fly/cricket for later?

 

[Krissim Klaw]

The only time I have seen mantises pause for long periods with food in their claws is if something has startled them. Generally when they finally come back to life so to speak they end up dropping the prey item anyways. Almost like their itty bitty bug brains forgot they had food to begin with.

 

[Bryce08]

mine sometimes will stop eating and hold the food if I start watching them eat...sounds funny but they do it often, all different species.

 

[hibiscusmile]

they do this a lot, dont know why, ususally if they drop it they are looking for water. I think sometimes they are like the lions u see on tv, once they have the food, they lay there next to it keeping it under watchful eyes for later.

 

[Mvalenz]

I have seen my mantids do this before. They either drop it eventually or continue to eat it later. My friend has a blue flash that still had the leftovers of a fat wax worm the day after we feed it to her.

 

[whatislove]

My budwings do this often, especially the males, if I feed them a mealworm theyll eat about half and then keep it for a couple of hours before eating the rest.

I think its just what hibiscussmile said, they are like lions protecting their food.

In the wild that kill wouldve most likely been well earned and simply dropping it would open it up to a wide variety of scavenger insects, they arent about to throw away a perfectly good meal.

 

[Rick]

Seen that many times. It is normal.

 

[uralowl]

Thanks for the replies, my african lined mantis is currently holding a half eaten micro cricket that I gave it earlier. All of the Egyptian mantids seem to have eaten the fruit flies they were holding yesterday. A bit off-topic, but I caught one of my Egyptian mantids moulting last night. Took her about 15 minutes to completely finish the moult, but she came out flawless and it's the first time I've actually seen one of my mantids moult before.

 

[CoolMantid]

It is a sight to see