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It is quite possible that the species will eventually cover all of the lower 48 states. It would do well if introduced into Hawaii as well. They like high heat and humidity. That is why they are found through out the Med region. But they can tolorate colder areas as well.

 
I just got back today and all 12 are OK but they ate all their fruit flies while I was gone, a few molted. I sprayed right away. Almost time to move up to larger prey. I'm looking forward to getting more variety in their diet. I guess I. oratoria (males) was what I was seeing around my porch light at night last summer.

 
More recent molts in the past couple of days. Is the species getting easier to ID? Stagmomantiiiis ....?

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Yeah, we're pretty much positive what sp. it is. Your lucky to have all 12 survive, and not a single canible incident (unless you seperated them). Male I. oratorias will fly toward porch lights often, but the females only have budwings, and cannot fly. If you ever catch a mantis in your area, check to see if it has an orange-red spot on its second to last segment (on abdomen). If it does (male or female), its an I. oratoria. :D

Good Luck. :)

 
Some of you may already have this but I figuered it will be helpful to post part again. This is part of a key that identifies all species of mantids found in the US. Send me your email and I will send the whole key to you!

You must be patient as the keys only work reliably with adult mantids.

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It is possible that you have one of 3 different Stegmomantis species. S. carolina, S. limbata and S. californica are all to be found in parts of Texas. I do not have very detailed range info from TX at this time though. The key will be helpful when your critters become adults.

 
Well most people are leaning towards S. carolina so far but it still has not been nailed down yet by anybody. Yes I separated them a long time ago, two or three days after they hatched. They couldn't even eat together because the movements of each other was distracting them from prey other than themselves, just made sense to separate them. All 12 still alive, I'm surprised all are alive even though they are separated. One was stumbling and hungry yesterday, I thought it was a gonner but it managed to finally grab a ffly and all fattened up now. Cool, thanks Hypoponera, I'm going to take a look at that.

 
Mike, sent me this key and I must say I'm fascinated by it to no end. It's very helpful when identifying species in the field. :)

I wish I saw this post earlier. I find it very interesting.

Thanks again

Mikhail

 
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Just a few more pics after another molt. All 12 still alive, this is the biggest one right now, moved up to eating crix and other things besides fflies.

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bytorsnowdog said:
Well most people are leaning towards S. carolina so far but it still has not been nailed down yet by anybody.
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They are most definitely not Stagmomantis, carolina. I am 120% positive that they are not them. I breed S. carolina every year and they never (although similar) look like yours. I know next to nothing about the other two sp. that they could be, I'll do a little research and I'll post my decision. B)

 
Not S. carolina? ..that would be awesome, I like a mystery. I know they can bubble up the ooth but regardless, going by the size of the ooth, I'm guessing the female was a decent size ...just rolling the dice there. Here are a few more pics.

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Hello, I've been wondering if there is a way to tell if a mantis is subadult? I'm trying to figure out if this one has one molt left, or two. I'm thinking one is left, just because of it's size. It's hard for me to think there are two left. I lost count of the molts, that would be a way but is there another way to tell?

 
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Look at the wing buds. The one in the photo a couple posts above is a subadult.

Sometimes it can be tricky. Even experienced keepers mess up sometimes.

 
It's easy to see the buds get bigger with molts, I guess it takes getting familiar with each species and looking at the buds to know if the finale molt is coming up. I don't know if I'll do this again any time soon. I have a lot of other inverts. These mantids have required way more attention than the other inverts I have. And I like to go out of town this time of year. I can't give up now though. I have to stay here and see them to adult stage so I can finally see what species they are and maybe get some ooths.

 
About the sub adult question. I actually counted the molts of my nymphs, and now some are L5. Is this subadult or pre-subadult? I can see wing buds, But the L5s don't seem to be only one molt from adult (too small). Sorry I can't post pics, and the sp. is I. oratoria by the way.

P.S. please don't give up raising this mystery sp. I love the pics, and they are really cool.

 

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