Stagmomantis limbata (?)

[MantidLord]

Okay...despite everything Ive said. Those last pics by rbird remind me a LOT of the S. californica that I had. In fact I was comparing that green coloration to my californica at the time which were a brownish-grayish color around that instar. In fact I'm willing to say without a doubt yours are S. californica. Looking at the pronotum width and abdomen shape, it has to be californica and not limbata.

Again, checking to see what males she will attract is not a good indicator (see previous posts) but it is a good method to find POTENTIALLY suitable males. As I only got a crack at this species once, I really hope you can mate them and hopefully make them more common in the hobby

 

[MantidLord]

Sorry to double post, but I'm on my phone and trying to add pictures to show why I'm sure it's S. californica. Hopefully they attach...

The ruler picture is a (horrible quality) of my female who looked very similar to rbird's female. The other picture is of her when she was L2

 

[rbird]

She had a hard night... she molted and I found her this morning on the ground. Her body is bent a little. Right eye is damaged. She has wings!



She was cleaning her legs (3 functioning well) so her mouth is working but she's in rough shape. Doesn't look good.

 

[Danny.]

FUBAR... Poor thing

 

[MantidLord]

I'm having a bad couple of days. And I know I've flip flopped. S. limbata. Californica wings are black. The lime yellow is indicative of limbata.

 

[Jay]

I am so sorry about the wings. I wish you the very best with her!

 

[rbird]

Day One: Post Molt Crash

A crucial hurdle passed; she attacked and ate a honey bee this morning! (Loaded with pollen no doubt.)

Really a desperate and mangled body but she's active and ate a bee looking like that! Amazing!

(I'll put her down if I think it's the right thing to do but not yet.)



Here you can better see her damaged "one eye." Hopefully, it doesn't get worse... seems unchanged so far.



She ate even with that curve in her body... poor wings but so what?... abdomen doesn't appear damaged.



Hopefully she'll live and start "calling" in the next few weeks? We'll see...

 

[rbird]

She's incredible! Look at her stand up compared to the previous pics. What a difference a couple of days makes.

I'm more confident she'll not only survive but thrive and mate.



She now uses all 4 (bent and curved) rear legs to stand and hang upside down again.



She's not the perfect specimen any more but what or who is anyway?



I'm sure she'll "call" when ready.

 

[mantisman 230]

well done so far!

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Hmm... In all my years of living in Arizona and seeing S. limbata many times I never have never seen a female that was not green. And Arizona (especially the Tucson area) tends to be incredibly dry! Not to disagree with anyone and not to say that other morphs cannot exist, but just saying...

We had a brown S. limbata female last year, but we're in central Texas.

This year's S. limbata (should have ooths in a couple weeks)

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Good luck with her rbird. I hope she breeds for you!

 

[rbird]

Good luck with her rbird. I hope she breeds for you!

Thanks, I'm hopeful she will. So far so good. The eye appears stable, she's active, etc. She's eating like crazy!

Enjoyed your limbata pictures- mine has that light brown/tan color too.

 

[rbird]

No luck with her calling yet (as far as I can tell.)

About 5 weeks since adulthood. The caresheet says about 3 weeks into adulthood and they are ready to mate. (I assume mantids will mate if placed together but the female won't necessarily exhibit obvious calling behavior to attract a mate? I guess all kinds of behavior are possible.)

Hoping she'll call, I've been leaving her outside but it is getting cooler (65 F) at night and we've actually had some rain in Los Angeles lately so I've brought her inside.

I leave her outside during the day most days. Well see...

 

[CosbyArt]

Glad to hear she is hanging in there. The wings are no issue, but I'm amazed to hear she is able to use her legs.

Regarding her calling for a mate, I've noticed several of my females don't do it, or at least I was unable to catch them. They did however mate successfully with males I introduced to them and have since laid ooths. Likely she is doing it really late at night after you went to sleep for the night, or simply releasing pheromones without the usual active call look. Best wishes finding a male for her, after all she's been through, it would be a shame for her ooths to be infertile.

 

[rbird]

She attracted 2 males last night ! Yeah ! ha, ha ! if she eats one I still have another Yikes !

This is the larger male, greenish, hard to tell in the pic but as long as her, if not possibly longer.



(Both males are very active, crawling and flying around so, hard to get closer and

clearer pics outside their enclosures.)

The smaller male also greenish. He's a little more calm.



After feeding her a bunch of flies I tried to mate her with the smaller male.

To soon I think, he's too active and aggravated being in an enclosure at this point to mate

Close up of the larger male cleaning his antennae.

 

[rbird]

Things are moving fast since this morning !



After reading Rick's sticky on mating mantids I used my bathroom, with it's screened window for space, to mate the larger male to her.

Presto, within seconds, Rick's advice worked like a charm !

She now has a honey bee to keep her occupied.

 

[CosbyArt]

Congrats, glad to see she did get some males.

 

[rbird]

Thank you CosbyArt

It's especially cool to me because she's my first plus she's a survivor.

 

[rbird]

She laid an Ooth !



Interestingly, one rear leg was dried into the Ooth and I had to pull it out. (not shown in pics)



* I know this is "old hat" for many of you folks but this one is mine ha, ha.

 

[rbird]

She laid her second Ooth.

But she is either very exhausted or dying? (A rear leg was caught in the dried Ooth again.) She's barely moving though still alive at this point.

Update: She passed away this afternoon.