Miomantis experiment-need some tips!!

[agent A]

hey all

a few months ago chivalry sent me 6 miomantis paykullii L2 who were produced parthenogenically

i sent 2 of them to others and 2 of the 4 i kept r still alive

1 just molted to adult today

now i wanna do an experiment

i wanna breed 1 gal and let the other be parthenogenic so i can compare the sexual and aesexual reproduction of these guys

i wanna compare:

ooth size/shape

incubation time/hatch rate

nymphal mortality/growth rate

male:female ratios

anyone have a subadult or adult male who can help me? also, if i mate 1 female and then mate her male nymphs with her sister's parthenogenicly produced female nymphs, is this still inbreeding??

thanx

 

[Rick]

I wouldn't worry about the inbreeding part. How can you be certain they are parthenogenic offspring if you didn't witness it yourself? Not saying the other guy lied, but you know.

I think you need to have more than one of each in order to make your data meaningful. The differences you see may just be individual differences with those two mantids. We all know that ooth size and nymph output per ooth can very among the same species. You would need to feed exactly the same as well. I would also think your results should be replicable.