OGIGA's Mantis Mini-gallery

[OGIGA]

Is it not normal for a male Orchid to be brown? if it's a rarity then you should try to breed it as much as possible, then you could name it after yourself for the sciency name, common name: Orchid mantis brown varient!

I guess so. This is the first pair of orchids I kept so I'm not too experienced with them yet.

 

[OGIGA]

I haven't had a photoshoot for a while until now.

Hard to imagine that something that small can mate with something that big. Yeah, she wanted to eat him.

I tried to get them to mate, but I guess they aren't ready yet. The female became an adult 15 days ago and the male 31 days ago.

 

[wuwu]

you need to feed her A LOT more before attempting to mate them again. her stomach looks pretty flat in the pics.

 

[OGIGA]

How much is A LOT more? I fed her 3 large roaches last night.

 

[Ian]

More fantastic photos there mate!

Best of luck with mating them, looking forward to the dirty photo shoot to come

 

[OGIGA]

Thanks! I just realized that I forgot to show you guys something. Enjoy!

No ooths yet, but I guess she's fertile now.

 

[OGIGA]

I just tried to get him to mate with another female. He didn't do it, but good thing he didn't get eaten. I just fed the female lots of blue bottles (they finally eclosed).

 

[mrblue]

How much is A LOT more? I fed her 3 large roaches last night.

i would say you should try to judge how hungry/sated mantids are by how they look, more than anything else. for example, the female in those pictures looks pretty hungry, and "a lot" more would be til she is visibly fat. i think a general rule of thumb is to feed the female as much as she will eat before introducing a male for mating. if she refuses your food, then she is less likely to try to eat the male. it can still happen obviously, if he is unlucky or plain incompetent and makes a wrong move or something. but usually sated mantids are less on edge/nervy, they seem a bit more relaxed.

so i would reccommend to feed the female until she won't eat anymore, then maybe the day after try to feed her again. if she still refuses food then it would seem to be a good time to try a mating. because in theory (amoutn of days theyve been adult) they are both sexually mature. let us know how it goes when you try it.

 

[OGIGA]

Sure. over the past several days, I fed her 4 large roaches and about 40-50 blue bottles. I'd say she's pretty fat now but I couldn't get her out to take pictures. She was having an attitude. Anyway, she hasn't stopped eating, but she lost her appetite for blue bottles now. I couldn't catch a roach for her last night . She still looks very interested in eating her potential mate though.

 

[Mettler]

Would you mind taking the next lot of pics with something next to her to show scale? Up until now, I didn't realise how big the orchid mantis grows, I'd only ever seen pics of the little ones. She looks awesome! 8)

 

[OGIGA]

Sorry Ian. Looks like my orchids don't want to mate yet. However, I got my male stagmomantis californica to mate with another female. He's more experienced this time because he's keeping his tail attached. He kept taking out his tail and putting it back in with the other female.

Just got on

Looking for the right place

Female going, "Hey!" She tried to grab him and i stopped her.

That's how it's done.

This is the best I can get to kinda show what happens inside

 

[OGIGA]

I fattened up the female orchid, but she's still eating. She half half of my entire supply of eclosed blue bottles plus a bunch of roaches. By the way, I put a quarter next to her so you guys can tell how big she is.

 

[Mettler]

Nice! Lol ummm, I don't know how big a quarter is We have different currency here

 

[colddigger]

a quarter is like, oh, 2 1/2 cm or somfin...

 

[Ian]

Again great photos! I do like the photos of the mating guys, which species is this? Stagmomantis? I first thought it was Cilnia but doesn't look chunky enough.

 

[OGIGA]

Again great photos! I do like the photos of the mating guys, which species is this? Stagmomantis? I first thought it was Cilnia but doesn't look chunky enough.

Thanks. It is stagmomantis. Stagmomantis californica.

 

[Asa]

What's it standing on?

 

[OGIGA]

Which picture are you referring to?

 

[Asa]

The one with the orchid near the quarter.

 

[OGIGA]

It's a table runner made out of bamboo. Got it at Dollar Tree. Great for covering (part of) the top of my mantis tank.