My Giraffe mantis

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john57

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Here is one of my two Giraffe mantis. She is more curious than other mantis. This photo was taken after she ate a BB fly. It took about a hour and half to finish eating since they have very long and narrow necks. They have to stop eating after five minutes in order to swallow the well chewed food to where it needs to go and resume eating. One of the slower eaters. Notice not only the long legs but their very long arms as well.  Even at L2 they already have the longest legs of any L2 mantis I raised. Big babies they are.  I used high zoom on the camera but she jumped two feet to the camera. She has jumped before but manged to stay near me. She is now living in the Nano tall after this picture was taken. Yes she was raised in the 32 oz cup and molted without issues before moving in the Nano tall. Both Giraffe mantis love to hang on to the plastic flowers that I got from the dollar store.

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Both my photo and the vid shows the neck thicker than they actually are. Their necks are not quite as thick as the thickest part of a toothpick and barely as thick as the thinnest part of the toothpick. They need four times not three the length in order to molt property. Any slight bend in their neck specially where the arms attached during the drying process can spell doom to the giraffe mantis and they can starve. Having said that, Giraffe mantis are not really hard to raise at all and easier to start with than the Brunner mantis in my experience so far.

 
Both my photo and the vid shows the neck thicker than they actually are. Their necks are not quite as thick as the thickest part of a toothpick and barely as thick as the thinnest part of the toothpick. They need four times not three the length in order to molt property. Any slight bend in their neck specially where the arms attached during the drying process can spell doom to the giraffe mantis and they can starve. Having said that, they are not really hard to raise at all and easier than the Brunner mantis in my experience so far.

 
Yes they are very cool and love to watch you with one of their  dominant features of having round eyes where they can not really hide them either. They are a bit pet-able and I can brush back their antennas like the ears of a rabbit without filching.  For me personally, I like the Giraffe better than the Ghost.  I still have to be careful since they have quite a jump capability. 

 
Here is the latest of my giraffe sub adult. You can see the shiny golden wing buds. The wings stay at that color when adult. There is good detail in the picture.  I will post another picture when the mantis is an adult since there is not a ton of pictures of the giraffe mantis available on the web. My previous mantis did reach adulthood but had an accident. Already have a new giraffe coming and already done mods made to the habit to increase the odds for the mantis. Enjoy hand feeding them from time to time.

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Beautiful, definitely one of my favorite species. Thanks for sharing photos of this mantis! Good luck with the final molt.

 
Here is a photo of my new baby L2 Giraffe setting on top of 32oz dell cup next to my computer monitor. She wanted a look around. She is always looking at me.  This my fourth Giraffe and since I lost the last one and too cute not having another. She is turning out to be one of the healthiest L2 Giraffe mantis I have to date. When I unpack the shipping container she was ready for a fight with her forearms ready. I could not believe her appetite, the strongest appetite of all L2 Giraffe mantis I had.  She started eating all the larger fruit flies before I put the cover back on the dell cup. She must eat over a dozen fruit flies overnight. They are slow eaters and would take hours to eat that many fruit flies. She is off to a strong start in life. 


 


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