One mantid born from Oothica Nov 29th?

[AltarMantis]

Hi all, will do an introduction post here soon hopefully but I feel I've got a more pressing matter that brought me to this forum. Last night on November 29th my fiance noticed a mantis nymph on our wall near where I've been keeping an egg case I rescued. I realize now the early hatch may be result of our warm room confusing the egg. what really perplexed me though is that only a single mantis hatched from the egg itself. I am very excited to have this little guy/gal but am a little intimidated at the thought of trying to raise one lone mantis from hatch and I am looking for advice such as feeding methods, how to obtain different feeds in winter and any crucial information about raising baby mantids that a care giver may not know first hand without experience. will upload photos soon!

 

[Sarah K]

Hi all, will do an introduction post here soon hopefully but I feel I've got a more pressing matter that brought me to this forum. Last night on November 29th my fiance noticed a mantis nymph on our wall near where I've been keeping an egg case I rescued. I realize now the early hatch may be result of our warm room confusing the egg. what really perplexed me though is that only a single mantis hatched from the egg itself. I am very excited to have this little guy/gal but am a little intimidated at the thought of trying to raise one lone mantis from hatch and I am looking for advice such as feeding methods, how to obtain different feeds in winter and any crucial information about raising baby mantids that a care giver may not know first hand without experience. will upload photos soon!

Well, it is possible you could have just one mantis hatch from one egg case, but most often there are more. If you found one on the wall, it is a possibility that there could be more that have hatched in your house, and you just haven't found them yet. Although, they usually go to high places or near lights, so chances are you would find more in places such as those that are nearby to where you were storing the egg case, if there are more that hatched.  

Sometimes more mantises hatch from the same egg case for several days, so the most important word of advice I can give you is to put the egg case in some kind of small enclosed container with air holes, such as a deli cup, in case more hatch at a later date. As far as food for the nymph is concerned, there are plenty of online stores that sell fruit fly cultures (such as my own shown in my signature) all year around and will ship the culture to you via the USPS, so no worries there. 

 

[AltarMantis]

Thankful for responding! I personally caught about 15 fruit flies last night, and some stilt bugs and dewinged them myself but am unsure whether or not be had eaten any yet. He seemed to show little interest last night when i tried to put some in front of him with tweezers, I expect they may have been too large and therefore a distraction. There were absolutely no others born and so I put the ootheca on a container wall and set it outside in hopes that i would possibly retard the birthing process gor the rest of them, though im unsure whether that was a foolish decision considering the weather here is getting to cold for freshly hatched mantids.

 

[Sarah K]

Thankful for responding! I personally caught about 15 fruit flies last night, and some stilt bugs and dewinged them myself but am unsure whether or not be had eaten any yet. He seemed to show little interest last night when i tried to put some in front of him with tweezers, I expect they may have been too large and therefore a distraction. There were absolutely no others born and so I put the ootheca on a container wall and set it outside in hopes that i would possibly retard the birthing process gor the rest of them, though im unsure whether that was a foolish decision considering the weather here is getting to cold for freshly hatched mantids.

Oh that reminds me, I forgot to mention that freshly hatched nymphs usually don't show interest in food until a few days after they are born. I do not know what the fate for the rest of the babies will be since you put the ootheca back outside and the weather is getting colder there, but I a, glad to hear that there will not be any other mantises loose in your house!

 

[AltarMantis]

If one mantis spawning signifies an irreversible state change in the egg then I will gladly take the egg back inside. thankyou for relieving my anxiety a bit. I have had atleast 8 adult mantids in the past and one pre-mature but never one so young. So even something as normal for an insect as staying stationary for hours is making me nervous! i made a fruit fly trap, and will try to order some wingless cultures soon (I heard there are wingless options?) and will be trying to moniter Nicodemus as closely as possible! hopefully I'll be able to upload some pictures when they've moved to a better location.

 

[crabbypatty]

My local petsmart and petco have flightless fruit fly cultures and they have micro mealworms that I feed my nymphs, you should look around ones near you

 

[CosbyArt]

If one mantis spawning signifies an irreversible state change in the egg then I will gladly take the egg back inside....

Indeed the ootheca has begun to hatch, and the cold outside will simply kill the remaining egg/nymphs inside (they can not resume diapause now that they are developing).

One nymph hatching is actually a quite common occurrence and is referred to as a scout hatch, with typically 1 to 3 nymphs hatching.

Typically if the ootheca starts to hatch them slowly like that it is due two reasons. The first is due to the extra warmth it has sped up some of the eggs development, usually the side that was the warmest - the scout hatches can go on for weeks before the big main hatch of nymphs occurs. The second reason is the ooth dried out too much, possible if you did not keep it in a humid environment (i.e. a incubation setup)  especially this time of year when heat removes nearly all humidity from the air. If it did dry out too much then there will be possibly a few more nymphs emerge seemingly at random, and no main hatch, with typically only 6 to 12 nymphs hatching at most.

Indeed place the ooth in a container to finish incubating the ooth, and to properly house and feed the nymphs. See my post below for details..



Regarding feeding most nymphs are ready to eat within 24 hours, some wait a bit longer to 48 hours at most usually. If you can post a photo of the ooth we can identify the species in regards to proper feeder prey for the nymphs - some nymphs are ready for the large Hydei fruit flies from the start, some need the smaller Melanogaster at first, and some even need smaller prey such as springtails.

If your purchase fruit flies most are the flightless variety, have wings but can not fly, but wingless and wild flying varieties are available too depending where you buy them (but that tends to be only online, as retail stores only carry flightless cultures).

 

[AltarMantis]

I took the ooth in after it only being out a few hours during the day and is in a container inside. I am pretty sure there is only one species of praying mantis common to my town Eugene, OR. Should I try to mist the ooth to restore moisture or  (im assuming) leave be? currently my mantid is in a small container with damp, folded toilet paper, and atleast ten manually de-winged fruit flies from my backyard light (which I felt kinda bad doing). It is so cool to know a resource like this exists with so many helpful people!

 

[AltarMantis]

Used the only adhesive (beeswax candle) in my house to attach it to a high point in a tea carafe.

 

[AltarMantis]

Right as I was taking my pictures I saw the first signs of em taking notice of the good I left in there! 

 

[CosbyArt]

@AltarMantis You have the California mantis (Stagmomantis californica) species. Also in your state the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) is said to be common too, the link is from the Oregon State University - but yours is clearly not the Chinese but Stagmomantis species.

Like all Stagmomantis species they are best offered the Melanogaster fruit flies for the first instar, as they are rather skittish of the larger Hydei until the L2 stage. Wings on fruit flies are no problem, as flightless varieties have wings and I personally feed mine the wild flying FF without issue (what they would eat normally in the wild anyway).

Your should replace the toilet paper with napkin or paper towel immediately, as toilet paper has chemicals in it for scent (and possibly others for various uses) that can harm your nymph. Also you need to provide ventilation, you can do that by removing part of the lid material and covering with a fine mesh (to keep the fruit flies (FF) inside) like organza fabric. Another possible solution is to remove the lid completely and place a clean coffee filter over the top and rubber band into place (do not use tape as it traps and kills insects including mantids).

I think I covered all the points so far, if not just ask.

 

[AltarMantis]

High ph, purified drinking water fine for use?

 

[CosbyArt]

High ph, purified drinking water fine for use?

That is one question that is open to debate with many reasons honestly. The real concern though is the alkaline pH, as depending on the level can be a issue. Otherwise I would say it should be fine.

Personally I originally used tap water in my area with no problems when I first started out. Then I learned about the hard water leaving build-up on habitats and switched to so called store "spring water" and learned about the potential dangers of tap water.

Now I've come back full circle a bit, as many store's bottled water is actually just straight tap water (some are even unfiltered) and often worse than most peoples tap water. Some bottled water is of course filtered as advertised but still no better, then with reverse osmosis water that actually adds new problems to the water even.

To put it simply...

• Tap water can have many things that are not suppose to be in it, and things that are added such as chlorine, chloramine, etc. that can cause problems. To further add problems, house water pipes may be imparting metals such as lead, rust, or other contaminates too.
  
• Filtered water tends to remove all natural minerals found in water, which some pets require for proper growth/health, and imparts charcoal particles which can cause health issues (such as in amphibians (frogs)).
  
• Reverse osmosis water while the purest of water can actually be toxic for pets for that reason (such as fish and other delicate pets). The process removes the ions in the water, besides the filtered water problems added in as well. Several aquarium sites actually suggest mixing in tap water when using RO (reverse osmosis) water to make it more natural.
  

In the end every type of water can be problematic, the problems have to be weighed against the pet species and what is available/able to purchase for the best solution.

For a quick look at water and pets see the article here, although aimed at amphibian keepers, water is water and lists some test results of some of the common water brands and other useful information. Of course if you want to dig further into the topic there are many other articles to read online, and I spent many hours reading several recently.

Personally I bought all the materials to put together a purified automatic watering/humidity system for my pets (even as a DIY style system it cost over $250 but hopefully is well worth it), that was on just this Tuesday strangely enough.

In the next few weeks once everything is in place I will make some posts about it. As the primarily goal is to provide proper humidity automatically (and year round no matter the RH from heat in the winter) and can be done much cheaper if made semi-automatic, so it will be of help to others. Besides humidity itself, the system also allows me to get my sprayer and water bowl water too, and is a big help and savings once in place even by itself.

 

[AltarMantis]

Thanks for the info! figured the ph could be problematic but didn't even think RO would be a possible danger. I will just mix 1 to 1 with the filtered water and tap. I just want to be giving my nymph the best care I can. thanks again!

 

[CosbyArt]

Thanks for the info! figured the ph could be problematic but didn't even think RO would be a possible danger. I will just mix 1 to 1 with the filtered water and tap. I just want to be giving my nymph the best care I can. thanks again!

Sounds good. Yeah, I know I have read it from many sites and sources and it is still hard to believe (perhaps as we are taught that the purer the water the better). Sure I understand, best of luck, and your welcome.

 

[Sarah K]

Sounds good. Yeah, I know I have read it from many sites and sources and it is still hard to believe (perhaps as we are taught that the purer the water the better). Sure I understand, best of luck, and your welcome.

Not meaning to contradict--just trying to share my experience, but I use  RO water for all my mantids, and don't have any problems. However, I was told not to use purely distilled/RO water for my tree frogs, so I actually make a mixture of half RO/half spring water for their soaking pond. 

 

[CosbyArt]

Not meaning to contradict--just trying to share my experience, but I use  RO water for all my mantids, and don't have any problems. However, I was told not to use purely distilled/RO water for my tree frogs, so I actually make a mixture of half RO/half spring water for their soaking pond. 

Thanks for writing, feel free to correct anything I say wrong I'd rather know something correctly than incorrectly. Although, you are simply responding with the same data I pointed out, including mixing the water.

Sure while the straight RO water seems like it doesn't affect mantids, it is known to affect other pets (amphibians and fish as described/linked to above). That is a sign of potential health issues for anything receiving the water theoretically, including mantids. Of course without any obvious issues or distress we do not know the full range of possible issues (or lack thereof), in which case a scientific study would be the only way to know for mantids (and we know how few those are).

Various articles though can be found that claims issues with any water, and some have much scientific data to substantiate the claims. But the sheer amount of misinformation is vast, and the best that is can be shifted for it all is as I tried to describe above - all water can be potentially hazardous, and the most common issues of why.

Speaking of RO though we have a AQUAtiva Spectra Twin with Chlorigon system in the basement, along with a additional AQUAtiva filter that uses 4.5" x 20" filters. Then under the kitchen sink there is a 6 stage reverse osmosis AQUAtiva PRISM system and water reserve tank. Anyway the point is we actually have the systems in our home but avoid using it now, for many reasons. The main one though is the filters are good for only 6 months (the RO membrane one and such though lasts 4 years).

We called to replace the sediment/charcoal filters and such awhile back for them and we was quoted about $300. I can safely say even with all the bottled water we buy for drinking, and the water gallon jugs I bought for my pets, even in 6 months it comes no where near $300 - so the system is worthless in that regard.

We did not buy the systems either, they came with the house from the previous owner which cost him $8,438.40 - personally I think he was a crazy to spend even a fraction of that amount. Here are some photos of it all so you don't think I'm pulling your leg about it..

 

[Aristalochia]

I'm no expert but for the sake of argument.. if mantids generally drink from rain water, which is naturally distilled water, then mineral free water such as r/o would be closer to natural than other sources. I do know that different organisms like carnivorous plants actually require very low mineral content in the water as they tend to grow in peat bogs with  super low levels. Just some food for thought