Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii

[twolfe]

Here are some of my Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii (Spiny Flower Mantis) images. I posted some of these in a thread under Breeding and Care.

Four / fourteen of my wahlbergii mantids are now adults.

L1

L2

L3

L4

L5

SubAdult Male

Adult Male

Female, Final Molt

 

[patrickfraser]

Great photos! I am still waiting on any of mine to molt to adult. Congrats!

 

[yen_saw]

Love it Tammy! Great pics

 

[Introvertebrate]

Very nice. Do P. wahlbergii require flying feeders, or do they accept crickets and roaches?

 

[Termite48]

Tammy: What nice pics of a very handsome species! Are the blue hues something that is permanent or is it some- thing that vanishes with time? I can't wait to get mine.

Rich

 

[twolfe]

Introvertebrate: I never tried crickets. I fed mine mostly flying insects (Melanogaster ff, Hydei ff and then bb flies). I gave them be-headed mealworms occasionally when I was low on food. About half of them loved the mealworms. A couple of the nymphs would not touch them.

Rich: The blue has changed to an olive green on my other adults around the # 9. The blue on the legs has turned a brighter green.

 

[Idolofreak]

I've always loved the wing patterns and colors on these guys. :tt1: BTW the L1 & L2 somehow remind me of the xenomorph aliens from AVP.

 

[rs4guy]

They do look like the xenomorphs! Great shots like alwasy Tammy!

 

[Introvertebrate]

Thanks Tammy.

Tom

 

[angelofdeathzz]

You have some Great talent at photography, always like when you do a series like that! Maybe someday when I buy a real camera I'll have you teach me a thing or two...

 

[agent A]

How cool! Another species on my wishlist, the last time I kept them it was an utter disaster lol

Great work!!!

 

[PhilinYuma]

Really great pix, Tammy. You seem to be a molt ahead of Scott and me, even though our nymphs all hatched at the same time. Mine are also a fair bit paler than yours, in a white paper based 32oz pot with a white lid against a white wall.There is no doubt that the color is at least partly mediated by the environment One of mine went AWOL at l4 and moulted on a darker wooden shelf. He was definitely darker than his companions but had resumed his old coloration before the next molt.

Iv'e been feeding mine one bee a day with one day off during the week since L4/5. How much have you been feeding? Have you been giving them growth vitamins?

 

[twolfe]

Really great pix, Tammy. You seem to be a molt ahead of Scott and me, even though our nymphs all hatched at the same time. Mine are also a fair bit paler than yours, in a white paper based 32oz pot with a white lid against a white wall.There is no doubt that the color is at least partly mediated by the environment One of mine went AWOL at l4 and moulted on a darker wooden shelf. He was definitely darker than his companions but had resumed his old coloration before the next molt.

Iv'e been feeding mine one bee a day with one day off during the week since L4/5. How much have you been feeding? Have you been giving them growth vitamins?

Hi Phil,

I've been spraying mine with vitamin water. (Just kidding) I've noticed that my Orchids and b. Mendicas also molted to adults faster than their siblings from the same ooth that were raised by a friend. However, my Idolos (not necessarily from the same ooth but starting out at the same instar) fell way behind. And then there are the Sinomantis that I got in the spring that still are not adults...

Anyway, I've been offering my L6 and sub adult nymphs one bb fly a day if they are in a separate enclosure. Two of mine still live together. I did give extras to the ones that I raised communually up to L6 to avoid cannibalism. That may be one reason why some of mine are ahead. I'm still at 4/14 that have molted to adults. If you recall, I had some L1s shipped first (so that I could photograph them at L1) and then a few weeks later I got another order that contained L2s and possibly a few L3s. By the time the second package arrived, my original ones had already molted a couple of times and were much bigger than their siblings that just arrived. The odd thing about that was that you switched to Hydei flies before I did. Perhaps I gave them more fruit flies from the start.

Did you read the color experiment post on the UK forum? I either emailed you the link or posted it in the breeding and care thread. It was interesting but not something I would try. Most of my wahlbergii mantids are living in enclosures that are larger than the 32 oz containers. (The containers are taking up so much space that I've been looking for enclosures that are stackable. The stackable ones I have now with other species wouldn't work well for the wahlbergii because they are a smaller mantid, and you won't see them when they are on the top of the enclosure.) Anyway, I have silk flowers or silk green plants in all of the enclosures, and the net enclosure some used to live in had a live plant in it. After I read about the color experiment, I looked at my nymphs more closely and did notice differences between a nymph that liked to sit on a pink flower vs. the one that liked to sit on the yellow flower. They were very subtle differences compared to the dark pink nymph photos posted on the UK forum. I tried photographing the two of them but realized that I need to use a more neutral background instead of the orange/pink/tan one I used above for many of the images.

I really shouldn't be responding to a post at 12:40 am as I'm probably going to have more typos. Time for bed.

Tammy

 

[twolfe]

One more thing. I also went to Colorado for 12 days in September/October and North/South Dakota for 8 days in October. The method that I use so that my mantids have bb flies continually hatching while I'm gone may have contributed to overfeeding. It was a success though as I only lost one nymph during those 20 days.

 

[patrickfraser]

I had a color question. Are people getting one pretty uniform color for the wallies? I have a lot of color variations. They range from pale and pinky to bright green and yellow and I think I can see reds and oranges in some. All beautiful. All have been kept for in basically the same manner. Luck of the draw for any special treatment. I don't give them anything for color, just a stick. I know, I'm HORRIBLE. :lol: I have been watching the color experiment on the UK forum and was even going to try it. I got discouraged that it took so long to color the cup, I said to heck with it, and let the most "true" colors come out. The only colors around them are the brown stick, walls are pale yellow, and the entertainment center is just brown "wood". I'll see about getting some photos of a couple different ones. Who knows...I noticed a few pairs of swollen wing buds this evening. Maybe the morning will bless me with some winged ones.

 

[jcal]

Very nice pictures. Added to my wishlist.