So what do you all think, is this crazy?

[Colorcham427]

So I was thinking, all of these online chinese egg dealers sell them dirt cheap, they always have tons of them, most of these folks are from PA and MA and a few other states... what is up with NJ not having any in my neck of the woods? I have PLENTY OF WOODED AREAS in my town...

On average I see/catch 1-2 adult chinese mantids every Sept. here.

What if... I hatch out 200 chinese egg cases all around my town?

Hatch them all in my house, and then once they are out and not so soft and flimsy, I go around to every park and wooded area and release a couple thousand here and there lol... What do you all think about this? Bad idea? Horrible idea?

"Brian.. you are insane!" ???? LMAO

On average each ooth hatches around 200 nymphs, maybe a dozen ever make it to adult hood as far as I know.

Do the hardier African species able to lay ooths that are able to survive the winter time, or is this cheap american chinese species the only species that has eggs that withstand the winter time?

If I release 15 - 25 thousand L1 nymphs, I bet there would only be around 500-1,000 adults!!! Or.. maybe I'm totally wrong??

 

[massaman]

this idea is kind of out there so to speak!

 

[GreenOasis]

Just a thought: The Chinese are a more aggressive and larger mantid than the species that are native to your area. Wouldn't you be doing the native species a serious disservice? (Remember that Chinese were an introduced species.)

 

[PhilinYuma]

So I was thinking, all of these online chinese egg dealers sell them dirt cheap, they always have tons of them, most of these folks are from PA and MA and a few other states... what is up with NJ not having any in my neck of the woods? I have PLENTY OF WOODED AREAS in my town...

On average I see/catch 1-2 adult chinese mantids every Sept. here.

What if... I hatch out 200 chinese egg cases all around my town?

Hatch them all in my house, and then once they are out and not so soft and flimsy, I go around to every park and wooded area and release a couple thousand here and there lol... What do you all think about this? Bad idea? Horrible idea?

"Brian.. you are insane!" ???? LMAO

On average each ooth hatches around 200 nymphs, maybe a dozen ever make it to adult hood as far as I know.

Do the hardier African species able to lay ooths that are able to survive the winter time, or is this cheap american chinese species the only species that has eggs that withstand the winter time?

If I release 15 - 25 thousand L1 nymphs, I bet there would only be around 500-1,000 adults!!! Or.. maybe I'm totally wrong??

No, you sell yourself short on this one, Brian, particularly if your basic data is correct. I don't know where abouts in New Joisey you live, but I did a brief climate comparison between Trenton, N.J. and Philadelphia, PA using W.U. data. Both areas have almost identical January lows of around 24F, so that is unlikely to be the problem, especially since the ooths need to be able to survive low-side outliers. I started seeing a difference later in the year, though, when nymphs may be expected to be hatching. In Trenton, Low/high temp data for April and May respectively were 39/61F and 49/72Fin Trenton and 46/65F and 58/78F in Philly, which means that nymphs in these early months would be more poorly fed in Trenton than in Philly. It may be, though, that nymphs hatch later in Trenton. The limiting factor here, though, is the fact that mantid hatching times, which are genetically controlled, must not be so early that the nymphs starve but must also not be so late that they reach adulthood so late that it is difficult for the females to find enough food. If I were being paid to research this, I would contact, by phone, an entomology person in a university or museum in the two cities or their environs, and talk to them about population densities and fluctuation and hatch and laying times.

A NZ mantis book (the one that I recommended to Penguin) contains an irritating statement that only 1% of the mantis nymphs survive. This is meaningless, unless we know how many nymphs are produced from each pairing and if an equal number of males and females is involved. Everything else being equal, if one pair produced 600 nymphs, in the first year there would be 6 adults, in the second year, 36, and so on in a geometrical progression. In fact, a population increases or diminishes according to the size of the biomass that supports it and remains stable when the biomass is stable.

I think that it would be great if you were to try the kind of experiment that you suggest, even if it results in no significant increase in the population. The problem will be in trying to track your introduced population since the nymphs will cast their skin and any markings you put on it at the first molt. One rough and ready method might be to remove the left middle leg from each nymph and remove it again when you catch a nymph with a partially grown left mid leg.. Although it would increase your husbandry efforts, you should get a greater population increase, if any, by waiting until L2 before releasing the nymphs. Unfortunately, if you don't want to mark your nymphs, the only other way of keeping data, that I know of, would be to collect all the nymphs that you can find in, say, a dozen marked areas this year, without introducing any nymphs, and comparing the data with that obtained next year when the release has been carried out.

I shall be really interested to hear your findings if you follow through on this.

 

[Mr.Mantid]

I am doing a similar experiment. I recently purchased 50 chinese mantis ooths for dirt cheap in hope to increase the chinese mantis population in my area (Southwestern Wisconsin) a bit.

 

[Colorcham427]

Thanks Phil. I am going to do this. I plan on getting around 200 ooths. Hatching them all in captivity and releasing them in several locations throughout my town.

Maybe the reason why I don't see many is because there aren't many gardeners who use them? The temperature readings that you posted are helpful, thanks. The temperatures are good for them. Tons of insects come out during the time when the climate isn't going any lower than 60.

Once it hits mid May I am going to start hatching a lot of ooths lol. Hopefully by October, the adults will have found enough mates to leave my town some ooths! lol

 

[Rick]

I have no idea why you would want to do this. The chinese mantis is an introduced species that feeds on and outcompetes natives for food sources. An introduction where there are none would only harm the native population if there is one. That's if you are positive there are none there already. Weedy areas are better places to look than wooded areas. It is really a bad idea and hopefully you change your mind.

 

[massaman]

besides the price for 200 or 2000 ooths would be quite alot if your on any kind of budget and releasing this many wont produce that many results besides most would die to the weather or be eaten by other predatorial insects or other animals and you would be doing all this for nothing in all respects!

 

[lancaster1313]

I have no idea why you would want to do this. The chinese mantis is an introduced species that feeds on and outcompetes natives for food sources. An introduction where there are none would only harm the native population if there is one. That's if you are positive there are none there already. Weedy areas are better places to look than wooded areas. It is really a bad idea and hopefully you change your mind.

+1

Why not try a genuinely native species.

I am releasing some Stagmomantis carolina mantids in my area,(my property and a few neighboring properties, with permission) because I know that they are native, as I found a mantis and an ooth at a local park. I am not releasing very many of them, only what I can breed. I do hope to have some survive in my area, I could use some skeeter eaters, :lol: and it would be nice to reduce some of the many non-native creatures that keep popping up in large numbers. <_<

 

[hibiscusmile]

No opinion on this one.... :huh:

 

[Colorcham427]

OK then I won't do it. I was honestly waiting for responses like this so I don't do it. It won't cost me a penny. I get ooths less than a dollar and re-sell them for $4 - $5 dollars.

There are mantis in my town when the seasons change, I just don't find many...

Besides, out of the 100 or so that make it out as L1's, about how many make it to L3? 12?

 

[Rick]

OK then I won't do it. I was honestly waiting for responses like this so I don't do it. It won't cost me a penny. I get ooths less than a dollar and re-sell them for $4 - $5 dollars.

There are mantis in my town when the seasons change, I just don't find many...

Besides, out of the 100 or so that make it out as L1's, about how many make it to L3? 12?

Very few make it. I believe that conditions have to be pretty good for mantids as large as the chinese to survive. That's why they are found in large numbers in areas containing a lot of feeder insects.

 

[ismart]

Don't waste your time Brian. If you see a few mantids here and there, then your area already holds a population. The reason your only seeing a few is because most likly your area can only sustain a few to adulthood anyway. I'm pretty sure the population of mantids your already seeing, has been there long before any of us were born.

 

[PhilinYuma]

My Great Mantis Goddess, Brian, you caved!

Rick and Ismart are very senior members of this forum, and their knowledge of captive mantis raising is certainly much greater than mine, but I am not sure that their expertise extends infallibly to mantis ecology. Rick is afraid that your massive introductions of Tenodera sinensis will threaten indigenous species. What would they be? Stagmomantis newjersiae? Oligonicella trentoni? If so, I fear that they are long extinct. Chinese mantis "egg masses' were introduced into a few areas of N.J from Philadelphia (which is why I gave the temp. data for that city) in 1902, as reported in the New Jersey Annual Report Vols 24-25 (bound in one volume and your reference is around p588, though I don't have the volume at hand -- you should be able to get it through your public library), because there were no indigenous mantids in the area.. By 1904, the experiment was deemed a failure, but your results over a hundred years later and in a different part of the state (though I have no idea of where you live) the results may well be different. Ismart's (Paul's) opinion is valid to an extent, but not in this case, since you don't know whether the nymphs that you found are from an established colony or released from imported ooths by a gardener. It as true now as it was then. that in order to establish a colony, it is necessary to introduce a massive number of ooths, and as I mentioned before, to release them at L2 rather than as ooths or L1 larvae. The final test of a successful introduction is the number of viable ooths that you discover in the fall and in the fall one year later.

I suspect that the introduction of ooths will not be successful, but if you do the experiment you will know one way or the other, and since I imagine that your interest in the experiment is a commercial rather than purely scientific one, if you do luck out, you stand to profit from it.

This site is full of off the wall and sometimes interesting theories, but the writers are content with saying "IMHO" or "what do I know?" instead of testing their ideas with a simple experiment. I sometimes design experiments to test them without bothering to record them here. Since you are (or were) one of the rare exceptions, I will share a recent experiment with you (no one else is allowed to read this ) to show that experiments can be fun as well as instructive.

Recently, a European member suggested that mantids eat sweet substances so that the material will stick to their head and attract flies. When I had finished laughing, I set up an experiment using some L4 flower mantids and L3 violins. I made a weak solution of honey and water, strong enough to be slightly sticky, and painted it on the experimental insects, four of each species. I decided that instead of seeing how long it took them to catch a given number of flies, I would starve them for 36 hrs and then introduced a counted surfeit of flies to them and their controls and see how many each group ate in 12 hrs (0800-2000). The experimental nymphs were seriously pissed off at being painted with honey and spent the next hour-11/2 hours cleaning the stuff off their heads and faces with their forelegs. As a consequence, the control mantids got a head start and ate a few more flies than the experimental group, and I got the answer and a good laugh into the bargain.

Now, get your arse in gear and get that experiment started. The Great Mantis Goddess is watching you!

 

[sporeworld]

At the minimum, you'd help feed the local bird population. (What's the emoticon for half laughing / half serious...?)

 

[MantidLord]

Phil, even if there are no native species in New Jersey, the introduction of a massive amount of praying mantids would still greatly affect other insects and creatures. You mentioned ecology, well I'm sure you know that releasing thousands of a generalized predatory in a relatively stable ecosystem would ruin it. That could cause the reduction in population of prey and ultimately kill off or threaten the whole mantis population in New Jersey, not to mention the plants that rely upon the prey. It may also increase the population of creatures that feed off of the mantids. This experiment seems extremely reckless. Unless of course it were in a controlled environment, I wouldn't do it.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Phil, even if there are no native species in New Jersey, the introduction of a massive amount of praying mantids would still greatly affect other insects and creatures. You mentioned ecology, well I'm sure you know that releasing thousands of a generalized predatory in a relatively stable ecosystem would ruin it. That could cause the reduction in population of prey and ultimately kill off or threaten the whole mantis population in New Jersey, not to mention the plants that rely upon the prey. It may also increase the population of creatures that feed off of the mantids. This experiment seems extremely reckless. Unless of course it were in a controlled environment, I wouldn't do it.

Well, that's the most sensible counter argument that I have seen on this thread, so let's look more closely at it.

What is the "whole mantis population in Jew Jersey"? I regretted having joyously cited S. newjersiae and O trentoni, because there would be uninformed folks who would believe that these phantasmogoria actually existed. They do not. There are no mantids native to NE America. The Chinese, Narrow wuinged, and European mantis were all introduced into the NE from about 1896-99 (Tenodera sinensis-Mantis religiosa) to 1926 (Tenodera augustipennis) and into California as late as 1933 (Iris oratorio). How do you think that these mantids were introduced? By occasional refugees on lachuga :lol:trucks? That might be true of S. limbata in western California, but the others were introduced by massive "egg mass" (they hadn't invented "ooths" yet) as I described at length above in the case of the N.J.agricultural department. You haven't really researched this, have you? If I am mistaken, and you have, can you tell me of any case in which such a massive introduction "ruined a relatively stable ecosystem"? That's not a rhetorical question, I really want to know if you have an example or if you just made this dire warning up because you thought that this is how the world should be.

Now let's look at your concern about the hapless prey insects in the area. Why do you think that mantids were introduced into the U.S.? To provide Brian and his fellow entrepreneurs a nice source of ooths? No, to deal with insect pests. What is the alternative? Insecticides, and they kill everything. I am a little tired, for now, anyway, of providing URLs to data that nobody apparently bothers to read, so I'll let you share this one with us, but there is ample evidence that mantids, who may eat one or two insects a day, if that, are not very good pest controllers, but they are certainly better than the altentative.

You mention that you might permit a "controlled environment" experiment along these lines. How do you propose to do that?

I enjoy discussion and even argument, but I am careful to do my homework for the most part and I don't think it too much to expect that when members tell me that I am wrong, they have done theirs, too.

 

[dgerndt]

I'll admit, I'm too lazy to go scouring the Internet and all the libraries in my general area to find specific documented examples. But here's my two cents anyway:

1. If mantids do not live in your area, it's probably because your climate and local ecosystem can't sustain these insects. Releasing tons of them might just doom them all to die of starvation or freeze or whatever else might happen.

2. Releasing ANYTHING that is not native to your area has the potential to be disastrous. Evidence is all around us. Here in Michigan, we have Emerald Ash Borers killing our trees. Quite often you'll see trees marked with spray paint or colored tape to show that they've been infected and need to be cut down. Want to see where they are? Here's a link from Michigan.gov.

3. There aren't very many mantids in my neighborhood, but just a few miles away, I have a friend who caught tons of mantids this last summer. Maybe you're looking in the wrong places.

(Okay, so I did do a little bit of research.)

 

[PhilinYuma]

I'll admit, I'm too lazy to go scouring the Internet and all the libraries in my general area to find specific documented examples. But here's my two cents anyway:

1. If mantids do not live in your area, it's probably because your climate and local ecosystem can't sustain these insects. Releasing tons of them might just doom them all to die of starvation or freeze or whatever else might happen.

2. Releasing ANYTHING that is not native to your area has the potential to be disastrous. Evidence is all around us. Here in Michigan, we have Emerald Ash Borers killing our trees. Quite often you'll see trees marked with spray paint or colored tape to show that they've been infected and need to be cut down. Want to see where they are? Here's a link from Michigan.gov.

3. There aren't very many mantids in my neighborhood, but just a few miles away, I have a friend who caught tons of mantids this last summer. Maybe you're looking in the wrong places.

(Okay, so I did do a little bit of research.)

But not enough, love. The environmental impact of herbivorous insects, like ash borers, is quite different from that of insectivores, like mantids. I find it curious that members of this forum frequently criticize APHIS for restricting the import of mantids, which can be carrying all sorts of nasty parasites, and are now criticizing state agricultural departments for the introduction of insectivores like ladybugs (ladybirds) and mantids as an alternative to insecticide use. As yet, no one has cited one case where this widespread practice has caused ecological damage in the U.S. Maybe we'll hear tomorrow.