Nymph survival rate?

[Griever]

I just had an ooth hatch on the 9th, there were about 200+ numphs to begin with. Some have just droped dead and now I have around 100 numphs left Is this death rate normal and how many numphs do you guys usually end up with? At what point can i expect the nymph numbers to stabalize and to have little to no die offs?

 

[Rick]

You didn't mention what kind but for some mantids yes that is normal. I leave them all in one large container until I get about ten left. In theory these will be the ten strongest and I then seperate these then into individual containers. This is one reason mantids like many animals lay so many eggs. Usually it takes longer than two days to start experiencing the mass die offs.

 

[PhilinYuma]

I agree with Rick. A 50% mortality rate seems abhormally high for the first two days, since for the first 24 hrs, many newly hatched nymphs don't seem to take food. Can you tell us more? It would be helpful to know:

Species

Enclosure - size and type.

Humidity

Food -how many mels you are providing daily, and how you estimate that that many is enough.

Substrate - are they on excelsior or raffia?

Population count -- with a net cage, it's easy to count the nymphs on the walls and top, but I always miss a lot that are hiding in the raffia.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Chinese and religiosa die off in large numbers, esp. religiosa, give it up, what kind u got?

 

[Griever]

oh, sorry it was the generic chinese ooth that hatched. It was housed in a 10 gallon size, with paper towels used as a substrate. I mist once a day lightly and they haven't taken any food yet, i keep the room at 68-75 degrees. I have a carolina ooth in incubation but i'm hesatant at seeing an encore of the last two days :huh:

 

[Rick]

oh, sorry it was the generic chinese ooth that hatched. It was housed in a 10 gallon size, with paper towels used as a substrate. I mist once a day lightly and they haven't taken any food yet, i keep the room at 68-75 degrees. I have a carolina ooth in incubation but i'm hesatant at seeing an encore of the last two days :huh:

That is normal then. Sounds like you are doing right. They don't eat for a couple days so don't worry about that. You shouldn't lose as many of the carolinas due to mass die offs.

 

[Griever]

In my quest to find the perfect mantis species for me, which species has the least hatching numbers? I've heard of species that only have around 20 or so nynphs that hatch out of a single ooth. I dunno, having so many drop dead leaves me feeling just not right.

 

[Rick]

In my quest to find the perfect mantis species for me, which species has the least hatching numbers? I've heard of species that only have around 20 or so nynphs that hatch out of a single ooth. I dunno, having so many drop dead leaves me feeling just not right.

It happens. It happens in the wild too. Hence the reason so many eggs are laid in the first place. Keep them all together until you get a few left. These will be the strongest and then you can seperate them and raise them. If all 100+ were to survive you would have a very hard time feeding and keeping that many.

 

[lectricblueyes]

It happens. It happens in the wild too. Hence the reason so many eggs are laid in the first place. Keep them all together until you get a few left. These will be the strongest and then you can seperate them and raise them. If all 100+ were to survive you would have a very hard time feeding and keeping that many.

Yes, like he said. It's completely natural and it happens in the wild. Actually, entire ooths are crushed, burned, get so much mold they can't hatch. The fact that you have them in a totally safe and stable environment is increasing the rate of survival exponentially.