Some of my mantids Stagmomantis carolina and Tenodera sinensis

[happy1892]

Here are pictures of some of my mantids. They are all wild caught, and I plan on breeding them. To do that, I will need a lot of containers. I have two females and two males of S. carolina, and 6 females and 2 males of T. sinensis. I avoided catching males of T. sinensis, but still it seems like the males did not outnumber the females in the wild or at least according to my sample.

Sorry for the brightness of some of the photos; I did not have the right setting on the camera.

T. sinensis:

Pre-sub female molting to sub-adult. In this post I am calling her "#1T. sinensis female".

Here she is a few days after her molt.

Video of #1T. sinensis female:

I forgot what this one was. Female or male? I think female.

Same female as above I think. #2T.sinensis female.

I do not know what these two photos are:

 

[happy1892]

#1T.sinensis male

#1T.sinensis male?

#2T.sinensis male eating Lobster roach nymph.

#3T. sinensis female.

 

[happy1892]

S. carolina female I caught tonight by swimming pool lights. L5 or L6 I think.

She is fast! Hard to take a picture of her when she is moving.

Also, I caught this at a Wilco station by lights. She has a pronotum tooth, and has the general look somewhat more like Microcentrum rhombifolium than Microcentrum retinerve. She flies well and flies each time she jumps. She jumps a lot and is skittish.

 

[MantidBro]

Awesome photos and video of your female! That's really cool that you found a wild S. carolina. I guess living in North Carolina makes it easier to see such a species! Lol. Do you see wild ones often? The first mantids I'm ever seeing in my life are Tenodera sinensis and right by my house, what a thrill, to see my first wild mantids. I collected two of them, it's strange how different they are from my others ones despite being the same species.

 

[happy1892]

Thanks. #3T.sinensis female drowned today. I do not know how they can drown in such shallow water. I was keeping her in a terrarium. I do not find S. carolina very often, but they are not rare. The T. sinensis are very common in NC.

 

[MantidBro]

Thanks. #3T.sinensis female drowned today. I do not know how they can drown in such shallow water. I was keeping her in a terrarium. I do not find S. carolina very often, but they are not rare. The T. sinensis are very common in NC.

Ive never even heard of a mantid drowning! That really sucks! like how did she even drown, i would think itd be easy for a mantid with such long legs to get out? how shallow was the water, like an inch? do you think maybe she died and fell, and just landed in the water?

 

[happy1892]

No, I am pretty sure she was healthy before drowning and I saw her a few hours before I discovered her dead. The water has an inch or less in the deepest part.

 

[MantidBro]

No, I am pretty sure she was healthy before drowning and I saw her a few hours before I discovered her dead. The water has an inch or less in the deepest part.

Thats so weird. And sad. Sorry about that!

 

[happy1892]

Thats so weird. And sad. Sorry about that!

I would bet it will happen again if I put another mantis in there so I am going to be careful in the future about shallow water.

 

[MantidBro]

I would bet it will happen again if I put another mantis in there so I am going to be careful in the future about shallow water.

Good idea, good luck!

 

[happy1892]

She actually came back to life and was found by my sister on the floor by her foot the next day. She is dead now. The pesticides my mother put on our house a few years ago must have killed it. The mantis was too sick to come back to life in a moist container.

 

[mantisman 230]

You should NEVER have a dish of water in with a mantis, you need to use a fine mist spray bottle, it works really well, and Chinese only need to be misted once a week.

 

[happy1892]

The terrarium has a shallow pool of water on one third of the right side and there is dirt in the container so the some part of the terrarium is muddy. I put another sub-adult female that I caught last night in there, but this time i have some stuff in there for the mantis to not drown.

 

[Ranitomeya]

They do not normally drink from pools of water. It's much more dangerous than helpful to a mantis. Stagnant pools of water can easily be a source of microbial contaminants that may sicken your mantis.
A well-fed mantis may find some difficulty pulling itself out of water tension. A mantis that has reduced strength from either preparing to molt or having just molted would easily get trapped by the water tension and drown as well.

 

[happy1892]

Yeah, I thought the water from dirt would be dirty for the mantis. The mantis was not fed very much at the time and was not about to molt.