My new pets - Dead leaf (Deroplatys lobata)

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That is great keeping track, Thomas! I figured that I will keep track of the instars once I have my adults produce ooths. I have only kept track of mantids becoming subadult and adult. I have a small group of young adults now, though one of my spiny females seems to already be calling in under 1 week!

Life is never boring with spinies. Though ghosts will not eat unless they are legitimately hungry, it seems that other mantises will bite the head off of any passing insect, whether they are really hungry or not.
Thanks, you should see my mantis log then. :D

Can't say I blame you there Jay. At times it seems I spend more time on my mantis log records, and backup calendar records, than time feeding them all even. Wow that is amazingly fast for calling, guess she couldn't wait. ;)

Yeah I've noticed the exploratory bite or two from mantids and then they drop the feeders if their not hungry. Especially when several of my current 35 mantids do it, the wasted feeders can really add up.

 
The molts will really slow down now... from this point on... I know mine did...
Thanks for detail Denise. That what I read, it can take 3 weeks or more for the last few molts. I know though one of my Carolina's just molted to L6 today so maybe they will keep moving along too. ;)

 
Here is a update photo of Terry. Currently he is an L8, and still not an adult, lol.

Both of my lobata's are doing great and both at L8, and should be molting within a week or so - maybe then they will be adults. :D

terry6-17-15.jpg


 
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Well several updates since my last on my Deadleaf mantids.

After talking with member Sticky about a mantis monster movie I made a silly movie trailer of Terry attacking a San Francisco image on my computer screen (July 9th). Fun little project, but Sammy wanting nothing to do with it, but Terry seemed all for it - as I was going to have both of them attacking.
 





Sammy molted to an adult and grew her wings, and I witnessed her final molt, and took way too many photos. That was on Wednesday (July 15th). I setup a deal to get a her male for breeding and all looked to be good.

Terry died on Friday (July 24th), she was weak and fell to the bottom of her cup the night before. After helping her she manged to hang on her cup lid, with the cup sideways but by the next day she was gone. She aged 196 days (6 months 15 days). Her last photos are shown in a above post, other than her video.

Then 5 days later on Wednesday (July 29th) Sammy was dead in her cup, she aged 201 days (6 months 20 days). What a bummer, she never got her date.

As both deaths were so close together it seemed to be feeder related, as there was no vomit/blacking/or any visible signs for a cause of death. As they were so much larger mantids, bb flies were of little use to them; so they ate a mix of waxworm moths and crickets. As my other mantids that ate waxworm moths are still fine (and from a culture I've had going for several generations of moth cycles now), it seems the likely culprit was crickets.

Last photos I got were of Sammy molting to her adult form. Sadly I was going to do a new "photo shoot" around the time she died and it never happened.

deadleafsammy1.jpg
deadleafsammy2.jpg
 
deadleafsammy3.jpg


 
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So sorry for your loss Thomas... It is heart breaking when that happens... You did so well with them..What a shame to have lost them that close to adulthood... making it through all those molts successfully.. Fly free over rainbow bridge Terry & Sammy

 
Sorry to hear that too, Thomas.

I've never had luck with crickets, except the wild-caught ones. But sometimes I get desperate and crickets are easy.

Hope your other mantids are doing well.

 
So sorry for your loss Thomas... It is heart breaking when that happens... You did so well with them..What a shame to have lost them that close to adulthood... making it through all those molts successfully.. Fly free over rainbow bridge Terry & Sammy
Sorry to hear that too, Thomas.

I've never had luck with crickets, except the wild-caught ones. But sometimes I get desperate and crickets are easy.

Hope your other mantids are doing well.
Thanks for the comments Denise and Jay. Yes the others are doing great, with the exception of one that molted to adult and has some molting related issues but is doing fine too.

I thought of the wild black field crickets, and caught about 40 of them one day. I was setting up a new habitat for them and read that they are more aggressive and can injury mantids more easily so I abandoned that idea.

Have you had any problems with the wild field crickets? I know I've seen several lately that were nearly double the size of the adult pet store crickets and would be even better for some of my larger species.

 

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