Phyllovates chlorophaea

[Katnapper]

 

[Katnapper]

 

[Pelle]

Beautiful photo's! :blink:

 

[[email protected]]

Very cool pictures.

I wish I had more room!!!! Something big like a bug room glares at mother.

 

[jameslongo]

Do you feed your mantids mantids often?

 

[matt020593]

It was probably dead before they fed it to another mantis. There's no point just throwing them away when they're perfectly good food . Sounds grim I know lol.

 

[Katnapper]

Do you feed your mantids mantids often?

No, not very often... but sometimes, when the situation unfortunately presents itself. In that particular case, I was cleaning containers in the bathroom at the sink, and had a male P. virescens out to clean his container. I have a tall bottle that I cover with a wash cloth sitting on the sink counter, that I set the mantids on while I clean their containers. I'd never had a problem before then... but he flew off of the wash cloth twice while I was hurrying trying to get his container done, once right on the edge of the sink with running water. I put him back and told him he was going to get in trouble... but right after that the little booger jumped directly down into the water swirl, and went down the drain before I could react.

I immediately shut the water off and hoped he would climb back up and out... but he never did. So I went and got my husband, and he took the pipes apart underneath the sink. We found him... he was right there with a small wad of hair that had accumulated in the pipe. But I'd been using very hot water (the pipes were still pretty warm to the touch), and he didn't make it. I think it was over for him fairly quick by either drowning or being cooked... or a combination of the two. But he was perfectly preserved... so I posed him on a piece of wood that I keep as a backdrop for taking pictures, and took a bunch of pics. But he was still freshly dead, and nothing wrong with him... so I then offered him up to one of the P. chlorophaea females. I figure no sense throwing them away and wasting them if all is past hope and they were otherwise healthy . After moving him around to mimic movement in front of her, she grabbed him and called him lunch. I did wonder if he tasted different to her "cooked!" But she didn't seem to notice or care, if she did. Then of course, I took a few more pics.

Now I usually move them to a different container, and then take the dirty containers out seperately to wash. Live and learn...

Here are some of the dead male I took before giving him to the P. chlorophaea...

 

[jameslongo]

Well, that clears that up. I thought you were simply overstocked on them. I had a bad experience of my T. australasiae eating a bunch of newly hatched K. diademata nymphs. I thought the Snake ooth was that of a katydid or something. To my surprise, I find the enclosure covered in newborns & my Purple-Wing is having a right old feast. One can only imagine how many nymphs that hungry mantis ate, but I recovered 12 Snakes to memory, so at least I had a manageable number

 

[Giosan]

I really like your pictures!

 

[revmdn]

Those pictures look swell.