Hi guys,
My bug's not a mantid, but this post is more about his housing so I'll put it in this forum. Last week, I finally fixed up his jar like I wanted to. Well, actually I just modified the lid a little bet. In fact, I doubt Sensei the mantidfly even cares very much. Well, maybe he does a little. Anyway, here's what I started from:
I had slashed out a bunch of metal from that lid and covered it in a single ply of paper towel. Also, I'm pretty sure that Sensei's not Mantispa styriaca, but Dicromantispa sayi.
Dremeled out a bigger, neater opening:
Ground out the metal splinters and such with a stone grinding bit:
This piece of screening came from a junked desk heater. I salvaged the rest of the unit for parts for other projects. I've marked out the inner and outer circumferences with a beige colored pencil:
I cut out the screen with scissors:
Again using the dremel, I drilled three pairs of small holes around the lid. I could have done a neater job, but I wasn't about to start measuring everything
Now I just popped in the screen and fixed it in place with some bits of insulated copper wire. The only wire I had on hand was copper, so I wanted to keep the insulation on there. I considered the possibility that moisture in the jar could generate Cu ions, which could be deadly to a small insect. Probably overthinking.
And there's the finished lid:
And that's how the whole thing looks. There's Sensei the Mantidfly in his jar with fresh substrate, new twigs, and his pimped out lid:
The funny thing is that he usually likes to hang out on the glass (not the twigs) but since I made that lid for him, he seems to really like the screen. He's almost always upside down hanging on the screen. He never did that with the paper towel.
-Tomato
My bug's not a mantid, but this post is more about his housing so I'll put it in this forum. Last week, I finally fixed up his jar like I wanted to. Well, actually I just modified the lid a little bet. In fact, I doubt Sensei the mantidfly even cares very much. Well, maybe he does a little. Anyway, here's what I started from:
I had slashed out a bunch of metal from that lid and covered it in a single ply of paper towel. Also, I'm pretty sure that Sensei's not Mantispa styriaca, but Dicromantispa sayi.
Dremeled out a bigger, neater opening:
Ground out the metal splinters and such with a stone grinding bit:
This piece of screening came from a junked desk heater. I salvaged the rest of the unit for parts for other projects. I've marked out the inner and outer circumferences with a beige colored pencil:
I cut out the screen with scissors:
Again using the dremel, I drilled three pairs of small holes around the lid. I could have done a neater job, but I wasn't about to start measuring everything
Now I just popped in the screen and fixed it in place with some bits of insulated copper wire. The only wire I had on hand was copper, so I wanted to keep the insulation on there. I considered the possibility that moisture in the jar could generate Cu ions, which could be deadly to a small insect. Probably overthinking.
And there's the finished lid:
And that's how the whole thing looks. There's Sensei the Mantidfly in his jar with fresh substrate, new twigs, and his pimped out lid:
The funny thing is that he usually likes to hang out on the glass (not the twigs) but since I made that lid for him, he seems to really like the screen. He's almost always upside down hanging on the screen. He never did that with the paper towel.
-Tomato
