Need advice on found mantis

[randomuser]

Hi. I have no experience keeping mantises so please bear with me. I found what I think is a male Carolina Mantis outside. It's fully brown. The temperature in my area was going to drop to the low 40s overnight. I've had it in a clean terrarium with sticks and stuff to climb on, water, and I've fed it 2 small crickets from the pet store. I read that ones from the outdoors can have pesticides in them which makes sense. I've been misting it as well and it's fairly humid in the enclosure. I don't have a way to control the temperature like a heat lamp. I keep the room at about 72F.

I've been trying to figure out how to properly care for it and want to know if I'm doing anything wrong. Would it be more humane just to let it go back outside and deal with the harsh weather? It's going to be cold all week at night. It is mid October and I think they commonly pass around this time due to age? Maybe release and nature take its course?
Thank you for any suggestions. I just don't want him to suffer.

 

[jmantis]

Since you already have the enclosure and food, I’d say congrats on your new pet lol! He will not be able to survive outside at that temperature. My personal thoughts on this are: keep him inside and he gets to live, or put him outside and he dies almost immediately. They like to be 70°F-85°F as far as I’m aware (feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken!).

If you’d like to share a photo of the enclosure, I’d be happy to provide any tips or suggestions I can think of! I’d advise to avoid crickets as they carry diseases that could cause death to your mantis. Roaches, grasshoppers, and blue bottle flies are (from what I know!) the safest options.

 

[randomuser]

Since you already have the enclosure and food, I’d say congrats on your new pet lol! He will not be able to survive outside at that temperature. My personal thoughts on this are: keep him inside and he gets to live, or put him outside and he dies almost immediately. They like to be 70°F-85°F as far as I’m aware (feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken!).

If you’d like to share a photo of the enclosure, I’d be happy to provide any tips or suggestions I can think of! I’d advise to avoid crickets as they carry diseases that could cause death to your mantis. Roaches, grasshoppers, and blue bottle flies are (from what I know!) the safest options.

Thank you for the reply! I do have some urgent questions regarding food and have been trying to find answers on the forum. I was looking through the other posts and saw you replied to someone else via Instagram. Do you think you could add me so I can ask some questions and hopefully get a quicker reply? It's @Underthedome

I haven't fed him the crickets since I learned they could kill him due to infection/parasites. I've given him honey a few times and he's gladly taken it. I just don't think it's anywhere close to enough. I am trying to find a local place that might have any of the specific insects you mentioned, but I'm not sure if any pet store local to here sells them.
Since it's cold out now, there's pretty much nothing to catch. I'm struggling to figure out how to find a food source as soon as I can. Do you know if mealworms, superworms, or dubia cockroaches are safe? My local pet store has those.

Also it's really good to know I saved him from freezing. Sadly it's going to be in the 40s at night all week and probably won't get better for the rest of the season. So he's stuck with me now!

 

[Mystymantis]

That is a female Carolina mantis. She is quite beautiful. Sounds like you are doing quite well on caring for her. Though make sure not to mist too much or mold could grow. Carolina's like room temperatures so as long as you avoid extremes you don't need a heater, so 72 is perfect.
For feeder for her you can totally feed her dubia roaches. I know petsmart usually has a small tub of them. Feeder crickets from a petstore also work though I prefer other prey because crickets tend to die off a lot and are smelly.
You can also feed her superworms or mealworms though I find this type of prey not as readily taken.
You can also order feeders online from several places, Rainbowmealworms, Mantisplace to name a few places I often get feeders.

If you want to catch your own food it might be a little hard at this point as temperatures get colder. One great place to find moths is at a porch light at night. Moths are usually safe from pesticides.

Good luck and I would say keep her for a pet if you can. Putting her outside now she probably won't make it too long with temperatures dropping.

 

[ANTdrew]

These are a great native species. If you’re lucky that female may lay an ootheca on sticks in the terrarium. As for food, you could still try to trap flies with a funnel trap. They fly in surprisingly cool temperatures.

 

[randomuser]

That is a female Carolina mantis. She is quite beautiful. Sounds like you are doing quite well on caring for her. Though make sure not to mist too much or mold could grow. Carolina's like room temperatures so as long as you avoid extremes you don't need a heater, so 72 is perfect.
For feeder for her you can totally feed her dubia roaches. I know petsmart usually has a small tub of them. Feeder crickets from a petstore also work though I prefer other prey because crickets tend to die off a lot and are smelly.
You can also feed her superworms or mealworms though I find this type of prey not as readily taken.
You can also order feeders online from several places, Rainbowmealworms, Mantisplace to name a few places I often get feeders.

If you want to catch your own food it might be a little hard at this point as temperatures get colder. One great place to find moths is at a porch light at night. Moths are usually safe from pesticides.

Good luck and I would say keep her for a pet if you can. Putting her outside now she probably won't make it too long with temperatures dropping.

Thank you for so much advice! I thought I'd reply and give an update. Thank you for letting me know she's a female. I just assumed it was a male due to her small size. It was honestly a shock to learn. She's doing great and has remained active. I'm already attached and I'll be keeping her inside. It's too cold out for her and will probably remain that way for the rest of the season. I'm feeding her Dubia roaches fed off of oranges and apples. With some advice, I am now looking into getting some butterfly netting to replace the metal roof grate on the enclosure, buying some decontaminated wood, and fake leaves.

I do have one big question. The humidity in my house has been fairly low at 41%. I have a hygrometer in my terrarium so I can check the humidity inside the tank. Is there a recommended humidity percentage I should attempt to keep it at? Again thank you all!

 

[Mystymantis]

Glad to help! Sounds like she is doing well and enjoying roaches! And like someone said above she may even lay an ooth or two for you on the sticks.
Yeah Carolina mantises are small and the males are even smaller and thinner! Once you know what to look for it's not too hard to tell them apart.
Yes, changing out the metal roof is a good idea.

For Carolina mantises there isn't really a specific tight humidity you need to keep her at since Carolina's are pretty resilient. So as long as you mist her enclosure every couple of days she should be fine. Carolina's are not super sensitive to humidity like some mantises. At least I haven't had any problems with mine. I just keep mine at whatever humidity the room is and mist them a few times a week and they are fine.

 

[randomuser]

Thought I'd pop in for another update.
She laid an Ooth today! I have no idea if it's fertile or not. I don't think I feel comfortable using the slicing method of confirming fertility that I've seen posted on the forum. Seems risky, I guess I should just treat it as if it's fertile. I assume she'll only live another week or two according to what I've found online.

Quick question, with the size of the small dubia roaches seen in the attached picture, how many should I be feeding her at a time? I don't want to overfeed and hurt her since she's so small.
Thank you for all the advice! It has been incredibly helpful.

 

[hibiscusmile]

give her just one if feeding each day. Wild caught with wings would probably be fertile, treat as such.