She ATE him!! How rude!!

[Psychobunny]

I had been planing to mate my 2 lineola's for a while. They have their own net cubes next to each other

and I decided to put him in with her when I noticed he was showing interest.

The female had just eated a roach and had laid a infertile ooth a week ago (she has laid 3 so far).

So, I figured it was pretty safe to put him in with her, WRONG!! she didnt see him right away, but when she

did, she literaly attacked him.

I tried my best to seperate them without doing them any harm, but couldnt.

She had him in a death grip and started munching his raptorial arms.

He didnt pay much attention to this however and began mating.

I was watching closely and I believe he did succeed in the mating, even while he was being eaten!

He was still at it even when his head, arms, and half his thorax was missing!! :blink:

Now I suppose she is fertile, but I am out one male lineola (my only one!!)

Did I do something wrong?

This experience almost makes me not want to try breeding anymore

 

[agent A]

Sometimes they write bad romances

I had a tenodera female eat a male I put in the cage the night before, then later in the day she mated with a different male and he survived

If he connected and she didn't reject the spermetaphore then it is safe to assume she is fertilized

 

[Introvertebrate]

Maybe, next time, put him in while she's still eating the roach.

 

[gripen]

or put the female in the males cage.

 

[Psychobunny]

I was thinking about doing both suggestions, but I didnt listen to the little voice in my head!!

This is all that is left of my male lineola

 

[happy1892]

This sounds similar to this video.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/22631541

 

[meaganelise9]

Ha that sucks.. Luckily, they're not built like us (whole brain just in the head), and they can do the deed while losing a considerable amount of body parts.. It's kind of amazing actually. Mazel tov but sorry for your loss.

 

[hibiscusmile]

oh u have plenty left to glue together to make a male, they don't need all them body parts anyways :tt2:

 

[Psychobunny]

LOL!! I still think it's the very hight of rudeness!!

Someone's making love to you, and you eat him!!!

It was surreal to watch him penatrate her and do his thing sans a head and thorax :hang:

So now, should I expect her NEXT ooth to be fertile, or will it take the second ooth?

Also, how long will a lineola retain the sperm and how many fertile ooth's can be expected from a

single mating?

I am going to miss that guy, he was so friendly and enjoyed riding around the house on my shoulder

 

[Psychobunny]

It's a good thing evolution put the mating and sex ganglia in the abdomen!!

Needless to say, it will be a "closed coffin" funeral :no:

 

[jcal]

At least he went out with a bang.

 

[frogparty]

Rimshot... Lol

 

[Chivalry]

Ugh, I'm afraid of getting attached to males and having this happen. Bad mantis! But you can tell the babies "See this was your daddy's wing... this is NOT how you treat a man..."

 

[gripen]

hahahha

 

[PhilinYuma]

You done good, PsychoB. There are lots of reasons why mating can go wrong, and i doubt that whether or not a female has just had a large meal before mating is a major factor in nature. The female may not be "in the mood" because it was the wrong time of day, she wasn't calling, the humidity wasn't high enough, or half a dozen other reasons that I haven't had time to invent yet.

By all accounts, you should have a fertilized female, and that was yr goal all along. Someone mentioned the female "rejecting" the sperm" which doesn't make much sense when you think about it, though a female can absorb sperm through the spermatothea , if her eggs are already being fertilized, as an additional source of protein. I think that this strange idea is based on the fact that the sperm is passed on to the female in a packet, the spermato, which is roipped open by the female. The empty sac is then discarded and sometmes eaten, giving rise to the idea that the spermatazoa were "rejected'.

As to your questions about whether the next ooth will be fertile )my guess is "yes") and how many fertile ooths she will lay after one fertilization, you are out to be the Forum Expert on both questions. Let us know what happens!

 

[agent A]

Someone mentioned the female "rejecting" the sperm" which doesn't make much sense when you think about it, though a female can absorb sperm through the spermatothea , if her eggs are already being fertilized, as an additional source of protein. I think that this strange idea is based on the fact that the sperm is passed on to the female in a packet, the spermato, which is roipped open by the female. The empty sac is then discarded and sometmes eaten, giving rise to the idea that the spermatazoa were "rejected'.

thanx for clearing that up phil, i thought the females rejected the spermetaphore sometimes cause i saw a female creobroter once, minutes after the male disconnected, push a whitish thing out of her abdomen then eat it and i thought she rejected the spermetaphore and all

she ended up mating again with a different male and all her ooths hatched, but i still thought the first time she rejected it, now i know it was just the old sac

thanx i owe u one!!!

 

[angelofdeathzz]

I've mated quite a few mantis in my day, not that I'm a expert by any means but I find that over feeding your females and cooling them down a few hours before introducing the male(that has been heated up) is the best way to have the males around for another day or 50.

If you can get past the first few hours of them being together your chances go up, a colder WELL fed female is slower and less likely to be startled by the new male, also use more than one male at a time if you can as the males will hang out together in a corner and she should feel out numbered till one of them is brave enough to move in, but by then she should know there in there with her to do a JOB(fingers crossed) and not so much for food.

Of course this will not work every time with out a hitch, but I successfully mated many Idolo's this way and actually had to stop mating them so I wouldn't have to many babies, yep you heard me right, a few hundred babies is one thing but a few thousand is another story all together, lol.

I didn't lose a single male this way out of the 5-6 I used(3-4 at a time), they all lived (males) to old age and expired as the true little Kings they were... They will be missed.

The main problem with mating is the males mature first, so you need to figure ouy a way to slow them down to let the females catch up or have males from a later hatched ooth to get the job done.

 

[Introvertebrate]

You're saying that the males might die of old age before the females are mature enough to breed?

 

[angelofdeathzz]

You're saying that the males might die of old age before the females are mature enough to breed?

Yes sir, that's exactly what I'm saying, all species are a little different but 80-90% of the time the males mature to adult first by weeks or more if something isn't done, like less heat/food or both.