Stay away from me!

[thorhack]

Dang, this species looks so cool!. I really like the Ghosts, and Idolos for their looks. But I also love the normal looking mantids, like the chinese. But these seem to be a steriod filled chinese. Really cool find yen

 

[MantidLord]

How large are they compared to limbata and carolina? Really nice pics.

 

[angelofdeathzz]

do you intend on breeding them?

 

[MrPitseleh]

My mantis was just doing this a minute ago with his arms way up in the air cause a butterfly landed right on his back.

 

[Ntsees]

My mantis was just doing this a minute ago with his arms way up in the air cause a butterfly landed right on his back.

The butterfly must have startled it because that's the mantid's defense mode.

 

[MrPitseleh]

The butterfly must have startled it because that's the mantid's defense mode.

Ha I may be new to mantid keeping but I do at least know that much. <_<

 

[yen_saw]

Sorry i have totally forgotten about this thread, was busy preparing for my Arizona trip. I will post up the differences between S. limbata and S. californica. the adult female Mike gave me die prematurely due to sickness but i collected a few more adult females from my recent weekend trip to Madera Canyon.

@ Mantidlord: Under the similar condition at Madera Canyon, both adult male/female S. limbata appear to be larger than S. californica adults. Comparing sizes between S. californica and S. carolina is rather tricky. S. carolina on the northern part of the region (with longer winter) appear to be smaller than S. californica but Carolina mantis from Southern states (subspecies maybe) are longer than S. californica.

@angleofdeathzz: Yeah one of the California mantis collected from AZ deposited an ootheca recently, but to be sure I let another wild caught adult male S. californica mated with her yesterday.