Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi

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jonpat83

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I have 3 freshly moulted PW's, 1 male and 2 females, 1 of the females is just normal size for her species but the other is smaller than the male, she was always a good eater and I thought she would have another moult until I saw her wing buds swell. Do you think she will be able to mate with the male even though he is longer,he is slimmer, I have another subadult female aswell and she looks like she is going to be quite small too. :?

 
Yep, only 6 segments and the abdomen is quite a bit wider than her wings, she is just like a miniature of the other female, about 3/4 of a centimetre shorter than the normal one

 
Probably something to do with genetic or feeding. I know with mine they were very small and then one day I fed them like 5 crickets and boom they were huge and stayed that way. What would be interesting is to try and mate her and see if her offspring is smaller than normal.

 
yeah i'm gonna give it ago and see what happens, she had a huge appetite when she was growing, I thought she was maybe P.occelata but her markings are the same as PW, maybe she is a hybrid but I doubt it

 
i cant think of any reason for the female being so small, sorry. however

"I know with mine they were very small and then one day I fed them like 5 crickets and boom they were huge and stayed that way".

they moulted? mantids cannot just "grow" from one day to another without moulting, they have an exoskeleton so grow in stages. the abdomen will increase in size releating to how weel fed they are, but they do not visibly "grow" with feeding, only with moulting.

jonpat83, have you seen this page? : http://www.mantisphotos.com/comparingpseudo.htm

maybe the female is so small because she is p.ocellata? did you get them all from the same place? if you did then its probably not this. i really cant think of a reason for such a big difference in size. all the wahlbergii females ive seen and had have been about the same size. im sure size variations exists but this one seems very drastic, i dont know what it could be, sorry.

EDIT: hehe i didnt see your reply when writing this, so yeh its not ocellata :wink: dont know what it could be. though 3/4cm does not seem so drastic actually, im sure mating will be no problem.

 
I had gotten mine and they were on the verge of dieng. Was a long time ago. So, once they got food they grew.

 
Thanx Julian Camilo, just had a look at that link and she looks like she is definately wahlbergi, the normal sized male and female both came from the same place, the small female and subadult which is also quite small came together from another supplier, I just had a thought, they might be wild caught stock as opposed to captive bred so had different feeding as small nymphs

 
that could be the reason, though for some reason i always imagine wild stock to be larger and stronger, i dont know why, maybe i just imagine they get healthier and more nutritious and varied natural food. but yeh it could be that.

:?:

 
i've had a similar experience with fish. i had several clown loaches, all bought as juvies, all siblings. they were all kept in the same tank their whole lives, but for some reason one just wouldn't grow. all of them grew to be several inches, except one that didn't grow past an inch. it was the strangest thing. lived just as long and healthy too.

 
Well yesterday was the big day and they were put together, I was quite surprised when I put the male in, the female did three short flashes with her wings and then just walked away, as the male approached he occasionally flashed his wings also. I left them together overnight and about an hour after getting up today he had finally climbed on. when I left for work today he was still hitching a lift but had not connected so i'm hoping when I go home they will have successfully paired. Thought it was strange with the wing flashy thing though, i've never seen a pair do this before but then this is my first time breeding PW's

 
with the couple i have at the moment, i positioned the male right behind her, within about 10 seconds he jumped on and got right down to business, no hitching a lift. he spent the next 15 minutes or so manoeuvering his abdomen round for the connection. he finally did, they stayed connected for a few hours, then the male disconnected and jumped away frantically. the only activity from the female was looking round at the male before he got on, then looking straight ahead again, as if to say "oh its only you".

however, i tried re-mating them again today (and also last friday) but these two times the male didnt seem as eager to get on at all, and instead begun waving the forearms like they do before a threat display, and flashing the wings out a bit. she was having none of it either, as soon as he made a movement she turned round, flashed the wings once. she faced forwards again and just started slowly walking away. he carried on flashing his wings and waving his forearms, so she turned round and gave him whatfor. its the best ive seen him fly. she was very well fed both times.

ive bred p.wahlbergii once before, years ago, and it went very smoothly. but i did see the wing flashing you described today, though they had already mated and apparently pw females arent too keen on being remated, i think. but as its your first mating of the pair, its quite unusual i think. how long have they been adults?

 
The female matured three weeks and the male 17 days, when I got home last night they were just connecting and all went smoothly, he stayed on for five and a half hours then hopped off. The wing flashing wasn't like a threat display but just a quick flick up and down of the wings, I wondered if it was like some kind of courtship display or something?

Anyway the mating went well so i'm really happy, hopefully i'll get a few nice ooths out of her!

 
ah right. when i saw it happening when trying to mate, it deffinitely was a threat from the male.

although i have seen them both do it in a non-threatening way, like when i got the female out of her enclosure after she had laid an ootheca so i could take pictures, she did it once or twice and i assumed it was just a bit of stretching, or excercise as it were or... yeh i dunno. maybe just to keep the wings active in some way, just in case. this is what it seemed like, i dont know the actual reason though, but this seemed reasonable to me. courthsip also seems likely though ive seen them both do it when they arent in contact. though their containers do sit next to each other on the shelf, and have mesh tops, maybe they know the other is around by pheromones? so maybe it is somehow courtship too! i wonder.

anyway, well done for the mating! :D

 
Thanx, i've got another two ladies for him to mate so he is gonna be a busy boy, i'm giving him a week of rest between each mating though, to allow him to feed up again and to keep his fertility high for each female. I noticed a female Creobroter meleagris female doing the wing flick thing after laying an ooth once, she had a couple of tiny pieces of ooth foam on her wing tips and I thought she was maybe trying to flick it off.

 
The male has been mated to another female, they had been together for a few days before but they never seemed to connect abdomens, I put them in together late at night for the next attempt and he went towards her with more purpose. When he got quite close she turned round and struck him like lightning and in one swift move he flipped over on to her back. I really thought he was a gonner but he moved so fast. He definately got her right this time and now he is with his next girl so I should get some babies soon.

 

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