Pictures of our mantids

[Maikip]

Hi there, it's my first time posting here. My boyfriend and I share this account and want to share a few pictures of our mantids.

Our first Chinese mantis, Sam. Died last month :[ He was blind in one eye and had a gimpy antenna. Plus most of his feet didn't work. But we loved him still.

Emi, our little green male mantis. We didn't realize that (s)he was a guy until we learned that the different genders have a different number of abdominal segments. But the name still stuck.
If anyone one knows what species of mantis she is, feel free to put in your 2 cents

Piccolo-another male chinese mantis.

Bertha- Big momma Chinese mantis. So far she laid 3 ooths in a span of 2 months. She has a healthy appetite and is getting on well.

 

[DeadInTheBasement]

awesome phots there. did you catch the mantids locally...i didnt know chinese mantids were down that way.....but i guess it doesnt shock me

 

[Maikip]

Yup, all of them were caught locally. I found two of them on the exact same window at my house, another we found on campus, and the last at our dojo. They are pretty uncommon here so we scoop them up wherever we can find them.

Here's Piccolo and Emi hanging out on some orchids. .

 

[dafke14]

Nice pics!!!

Lucky people who can observate them in the wild wish i was that lucky too

 

[hibiscusmile]

:lol: thanks for sharing, u have cute babies!

 

[revmdn]

Nice photos. I would think that mantids would be all over those islands, I know I'd like to be. B)

 

[Katnapper]

Welcome to the forum you two! I think Bertha is a camera buff! I enjoyed seeing all of your little ones. But the pic of Bertha on the camera is really great... just something about it I really like.

 

[kamakiri]

They are pretty uncommon here so we scoop them up wherever we can find them.

I don't know if I'd say they're uncommon in Hawaii...depends where you are and if there are feeder insects around. I'm pretty sure Emi is also Chinese but a green morph...do you have any other pictures of her?

The only other mantis I know of in Hawaii has an orange dot on the thorax between the raptorial front legs. I always thought they were Carolinas...but I'm not sure now. The ooths for those looked much like other Stagmomantis species...but it was so long ago.

And it's good to see a Hawaiian on the board! Thanks for sharing!

Grant

 

[Maikip]

I'm pretty sure Emi is also Chinese but a green morph...

Ahh, that would make sense. We've only ever seen Chinese around, but there are probably different species on other islands. Of course we'd like to see more mantids in the wild (especially other variations)!

Here's another one of Emi. She had two orange dots on each of her raptorial legs (four in total).

Hopefully Bertha shares my taste in cameras and film stock. . .

. . . But I think she's a little confused about my taste in music.

Sam has got to be one of the more active of our mantids, he climbs around and flies a lot. Too bad some of the 70's film optics aren't as sharp as his claws.

 

[Katnapper]

These made me smile.

 

[Anleoflippy]

Nice photos you got there...