pre-flight warm up

nympho · Feb 22, 2006

I was looking through some old stuff on my computer from a couple of years back and I found some good pics of my african flower mantises. I had 2 males and during that summer there was a heatwave and it was obviously hot enough to stimulate them to fly off presumably in search of a mate - a bit pointlessly in the uk obviously

. They have to do a 1 minute warm up before hand to get their muscles going during which they flap their wings while still holding on. They are quite powerful flyers really and could gain height to the ceiling easily and manage a few laps around the room before crash landing into a wall :roll: I reckon they could travel quite a long distance in the wild.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/macu...lowermantis.jpg

I was wondering if bigger mantids fly well too (I dont mean fly a couple of meters in a generally downwards trajectory after dropping them from a height :wink: )

Rick · Feb 22, 2006

Males of many species can fly quite well. Most females can't once they are full with eggs.

KennethJ78 · Feb 22, 2006

I've had a male Polyspilota aeruginosa ( not quite small really ) fly across the room a few times. He got scared of the female the minute she moved and then he just took off... He was quite fast and agile really... :shock:

leviatan · Feb 22, 2006

Males of many species can fly quite well. Most females can't once they are full with eggs.

This isn't exacly true. Females when were straving, can fly very well. My P. wahlbergii female flew few times around my room.

Rick · Feb 22, 2006

Males of many species can fly quite well. Most females can't once they are full with eggs.

Click to expand...

This isn't exacly true. Females when were straving, can fly very well. My P. wahlbergii female flew few times around my room.

I didn't say females cannot fly. I said they cannot fly once full of eggs.