wrenae
Active member
Holy frass! What was I thinking!
On Saturday morning, we were pleased to wake up to find (tenodera sinensis) mantids emerging from the ootheca. We watched 7 tiny little grains emerge and vie for position. It was SO cool to see them expand magically and then little limbs pop out. Each of the 7 eventually dropped to the ground, then found its own spot to occupy in the container. No more action... just 7. We left on an outing, and hoped the ooth would yield more nymphs. Nope. Still we hoped for the next day... nope. By Sunday night, I had given up... I read posts here and saw that typically TS ooth-mates hatch within hours. I figured I would leave the ootheca in the container just in case. Monday morning... 48 hours post hatch... we woke up to find the container was well busy with a full hatch!
In hind-sight, I realize that we should have moved the original 7 into another container, just in case. Here we had planned to feed the 7 some FFs Monday morning, but didn't want to add FFs while the ooth was freshly hatching. At that time, we could easily identify the original 7, as the new nymphs were so much lighter in color. However, we didn't want to disturb the hatch to remove the 48-hour-lings. We hoped that they would still be identifiable later monday, but of course the nyphs all darkened during the day. SO we couldn't really pick them out at that point. Monday evening, I split the nymphs into 3 different containers, and added a few FFs to the only container where nymps seemed to be in chase mode. Didn't see any catch FFs. This morning (Tues) we will add FFs to all containers. I see that there is at least one headless nymph. I am not surprised that the original 7 would now be eating their siblings! I know it is a bit early to feed, 24 hours post-hatch, but we are hoping to keep the cannibalism to a minimum!
Does anyone know why there would be 48 hours between hatches for the the first 7 and the remainder? Any recommendations at this point?
Thanks!
Wrenae (Mom of Sunhorse)
On Saturday morning, we were pleased to wake up to find (tenodera sinensis) mantids emerging from the ootheca. We watched 7 tiny little grains emerge and vie for position. It was SO cool to see them expand magically and then little limbs pop out. Each of the 7 eventually dropped to the ground, then found its own spot to occupy in the container. No more action... just 7. We left on an outing, and hoped the ooth would yield more nymphs. Nope. Still we hoped for the next day... nope. By Sunday night, I had given up... I read posts here and saw that typically TS ooth-mates hatch within hours. I figured I would leave the ootheca in the container just in case. Monday morning... 48 hours post hatch... we woke up to find the container was well busy with a full hatch!
In hind-sight, I realize that we should have moved the original 7 into another container, just in case. Here we had planned to feed the 7 some FFs Monday morning, but didn't want to add FFs while the ooth was freshly hatching. At that time, we could easily identify the original 7, as the new nymphs were so much lighter in color. However, we didn't want to disturb the hatch to remove the 48-hour-lings. We hoped that they would still be identifiable later monday, but of course the nyphs all darkened during the day. SO we couldn't really pick them out at that point. Monday evening, I split the nymphs into 3 different containers, and added a few FFs to the only container where nymps seemed to be in chase mode. Didn't see any catch FFs. This morning (Tues) we will add FFs to all containers. I see that there is at least one headless nymph. I am not surprised that the original 7 would now be eating their siblings! I know it is a bit early to feed, 24 hours post-hatch, but we are hoping to keep the cannibalism to a minimum!
Does anyone know why there would be 48 hours between hatches for the the first 7 and the remainder? Any recommendations at this point?
Thanks!
Wrenae (Mom of Sunhorse)
