Montana_Mantids
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2022
- Messages
- 213
- Reaction score
- 124
Hi! I’ve been here since April 2022, but I never made a proper introduction. To start off I’m a 13 year old male that lives in Montana (in case you couldn’t guess from my username). My birthday is on Christmas, hence why my favorite holiday is Christmas. While I might be young, I have a lot of experience with mantises. I kept my first mantises when I was 5. Of corse it was technically my Dad’s mantises because I couldn’t remember to feed or spray them. The first species I ever kept was Phyllocrania paradoxa. After not raising the 3 ghost mantis I had gotten when I was 5, I started keeping Tenodera. Chinese mantises where the first mantises 1-3 Grade me was able to raise to adulthood (although it took 3 years of me experimenting with their care). Then when I was about 8, I breed my fist ghost mantises, but my fertile adult female got eaten by a sub-adult female (Yes, I remember this well because of how close I was to reaching a small goal in my hobby, just for it to be crushed and eaten before my very eyes). That August, I got 10 ghosts, and I finally reproduced my first nymphs. Since then I’ve raised (and bred most of) these species:
Creobroter gemmatus, Creobroter sp. Giant, Hymenopus coronatus, Sphodromantis lineola, Rhombodera sp., Deroplatys desiccata, Polyspolota sp. (I probably butchered the spelling on that one , but its common name is the Madagascan Marbled Mantis), Heterochaeta sp., Idolomantis diabolica, and Zoolea lobipes.
Some of my goals as a mantis keeper/breeder/seller are to bring back species that are dead in the USA hobby, and species that are yet to be in the hobby. Even thought I don’t have to money (because I’m too young to get a job, and all the money I work hard to get by selling mantises to local pet shops is going into mantis supplies and new mantises) to donate to the forum, I want to give back to the people here and the people yet to come with my knowledge and personal experiences. Sorry about this being a long post, I just think a good introduction was long overdue. Hope you liked my story!
-Alex
(Picture of a female Zoolea lobipes from my collection about a year ago for attention. This is 100% my favorite mantis I’ve kept to date.)
Creobroter gemmatus, Creobroter sp. Giant, Hymenopus coronatus, Sphodromantis lineola, Rhombodera sp., Deroplatys desiccata, Polyspolota sp. (I probably butchered the spelling on that one , but its common name is the Madagascan Marbled Mantis), Heterochaeta sp., Idolomantis diabolica, and Zoolea lobipes.
Some of my goals as a mantis keeper/breeder/seller are to bring back species that are dead in the USA hobby, and species that are yet to be in the hobby. Even thought I don’t have to money (because I’m too young to get a job, and all the money I work hard to get by selling mantises to local pet shops is going into mantis supplies and new mantises) to donate to the forum, I want to give back to the people here and the people yet to come with my knowledge and personal experiences. Sorry about this being a long post, I just think a good introduction was long overdue. Hope you liked my story!
-Alex
(Picture of a female Zoolea lobipes from my collection about a year ago for attention. This is 100% my favorite mantis I’ve kept to date.)
