Orchids

RonG · Sep 30, 2014

Hi Everyone,

New to the forum. I've been keeping mantises off and on since I was a kid (just native ones I'd catch occasionally and feed crickets to). I'm really more of a reptile keeper than a bug keeper. That said, I have quite a bit of experience raising up all sorts of creatures.

I'm interested in orchid mantises, but I don't see any available for sale. Is there some reason for this? Are they rare or banned or something I'm just not aware of? Difficult to breed?

Assuming there is no serious logistical barrier to me obtaining a few I would like to start a breeding project with them. Anyone have any good/bad experiences with them?

Thanks!

Aryia · Sep 30, 2014

Hi Ron,

orchid mantises tend to be a little harder to raise than beginner species which is why they are less available at this particular moment. I have a couple hatches upcoming soon if you are interested, but I usually don't suggest buying these as your first mantis since they tend to be expensive and are rather unforgiving when it comes to husbandry errors. (Though honestly I have no right to talk since I did jump in on these as one of my first species, so if you're confident you can provide the proper husbandry conditions they are a fascinating species to raise and I'd be more than happy to share my care guidelines with you). My main suggestion would be to find a reliable food source for them. I personally don't like wild-caught food since they could be infected with any number of diseases/parasites/pesticides (Yes you can call me paranoid) and breed most of my feeders myself. I also try to stay away from store crickets. It's not the crickets themselves are bad, but the conditions they are kept in might mean they come sick and it only takes one bad cricket to kill a mantis.

Males and females have a two molt difference which makes it a little harder to time them properly, males have a ridiculously short life span of 2-3 months on top of that. Other than that I've found them pretty easy to keep and breed once you manage to tweak husbandry conditions to the way they like them.

Off-topic, are you going to UCD by any chance? I just graduated from there ^^

happy1892 · Sep 30, 2014

No, Orchid mantises are not banned.

Interestingly, from some places or people I have heard that Hymenopus coronatus are not too hard too keep.

Look for a comment by this youtube user on this youtube channel (scroll down some maybe). "No doubt I keep mine at room temperature they're really easy."

I am not sure exactly who he is answering by saying "No doubt" though.

RonG · Sep 30, 2014

I work at UCD, I graduated from UCSB. My family is from NorCal though, I went to SB for a change of scenery. I like UC Davis a lot, it's certainly a larger more varied institution than UCSB. No beach though.

I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to jump right into orchids, difficult care requirements or not. I work in a science lab and also keep chameleons, so maintaining tricky unforgiving conditions is not daunting if I have care guidelines or some protocol to go off of. Successfully breeding them might be another matter though. Can the males' development be sufficiently slowed down to breed specimens from the same 'clutch'? Or do you need to start raising females and then find another source of males months down the road?

As for food, I have no concerns. I've cultured drosophilia before and can do it again, it's not that hard. When they get bigger I have dubias and crickets for the chameleon.

If you'd be willing to share your care info that'd be great. What is it about keeping them that makes them difficult?

Aryia · Sep 30, 2014

I pm'd you the way I keep them. It's a long list of me rambling. Here I am, out of college, thinking that I don't have to type essays again haha.

They are not difficult to keep, they are just a little more fragile than your regular species (I suspect that's why they are rarer?). And being mantises, the timeframe for fixing whatever is wrong is very short. By the time you realize they are weakening it's usually too late. When you have it down they actually require very little care and prosper ^^