My friend and I were spitballing ideas and dreaming of having a table at a reptile/exotic pet convention and selling mantids and starter sets, feeders, bio-active sets, plants, ect.
but some members on this forum have warned that some of the most common species in the pet trade aren't actually legal to even own in the US. I scoured the USDA pages on pests, the environment, agriculture ect. and found nothing explicitly banning exotic invertebrates: it seems like something that should be left up to a judge's discretion, but instead is left up to investigators?
anyway, to avoid besmirching my squeaky clean record with my very first business venture, I was thinking of only stocking native mantids at our booth, (if we get one).
The carolina mantis would be easy enough to source as ooth off ebay. I have discovered something called Texas Unicorn Mantis ( Phyllovates chlorophaea) that looks just as special as anything from a rainforest but presumably needs less heat than the similar Arizona Unicorn Mantis, (though we could get some of each, if we could find them)
Also just found out today about the Greater Arid-Land Katydid (Neobarrettia spinosa), which is apparently carnivorous and thus just as cool as a mantis.
I have a friend in florida who has seen a type of bark mantid in the wild as well as those big yellow rhinoceros beetles.
I have lived in north dallas my whole life and have never seen ANY of these animals in the wild, at all, despite their historic ranges overlapping with my home city.
So my questions to the community are these:
- can these types of animals be reasonably sourced as ooth or L1-L3 so they could be marketed to families at an exotic/reptile show? I'd want a nice variety of Texan native animals to choose from, maybe 7 species, and probably ten of each species at least? does anyone know of / recommend some Texan inverts that could be sold with a fruitfly culture or something like that? or beetles that just eat rotting wood?
- do people even want/care about native bugs?
- do officials really crack down on every little bug at shows like these? The last one I went to had a booth with probably 20k in baby tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes, and centipedes. It's hard to imagine that the US has that many species of tarantula and scorpion that all tolerate captivity so well.
I'd be nice to offer native mantids for educational purposes (little kids) as well as more luxury bugs for collectors. the show I went to had probably over 300 vendors and millions of dollars worth in reptiles, live feeder mice and inverts. but of all those animals, including some jumping spiders from mexico, axolotls (extinct in the wild), and Spanish Orange isopods, I only found 3 little ghost mantises for sale. I asked other vendors if they'd seen anyone with more variety and a lot of them got really defensive and said you need a permit to carry mantids (but you don't need one to sell the millipedes that release cyanide when agitated). People at the show also had hognose snakes and vine snakes, which are both mildly venomous, and those giant- centipedes the size of snakes, which are venomous enough to send you to the hospital.
but some members on this forum have warned that some of the most common species in the pet trade aren't actually legal to even own in the US. I scoured the USDA pages on pests, the environment, agriculture ect. and found nothing explicitly banning exotic invertebrates: it seems like something that should be left up to a judge's discretion, but instead is left up to investigators?
anyway, to avoid besmirching my squeaky clean record with my very first business venture, I was thinking of only stocking native mantids at our booth, (if we get one).
The carolina mantis would be easy enough to source as ooth off ebay. I have discovered something called Texas Unicorn Mantis ( Phyllovates chlorophaea) that looks just as special as anything from a rainforest but presumably needs less heat than the similar Arizona Unicorn Mantis, (though we could get some of each, if we could find them)
Also just found out today about the Greater Arid-Land Katydid (Neobarrettia spinosa), which is apparently carnivorous and thus just as cool as a mantis.
I have a friend in florida who has seen a type of bark mantid in the wild as well as those big yellow rhinoceros beetles.
I have lived in north dallas my whole life and have never seen ANY of these animals in the wild, at all, despite their historic ranges overlapping with my home city.
So my questions to the community are these:
- can these types of animals be reasonably sourced as ooth or L1-L3 so they could be marketed to families at an exotic/reptile show? I'd want a nice variety of Texan native animals to choose from, maybe 7 species, and probably ten of each species at least? does anyone know of / recommend some Texan inverts that could be sold with a fruitfly culture or something like that? or beetles that just eat rotting wood?
- do people even want/care about native bugs?
- do officials really crack down on every little bug at shows like these? The last one I went to had a booth with probably 20k in baby tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes, and centipedes. It's hard to imagine that the US has that many species of tarantula and scorpion that all tolerate captivity so well.
I'd be nice to offer native mantids for educational purposes (little kids) as well as more luxury bugs for collectors. the show I went to had probably over 300 vendors and millions of dollars worth in reptiles, live feeder mice and inverts. but of all those animals, including some jumping spiders from mexico, axolotls (extinct in the wild), and Spanish Orange isopods, I only found 3 little ghost mantises for sale. I asked other vendors if they'd seen anyone with more variety and a lot of them got really defensive and said you need a permit to carry mantids (but you don't need one to sell the millipedes that release cyanide when agitated). People at the show also had hognose snakes and vine snakes, which are both mildly venomous, and those giant- centipedes the size of snakes, which are venomous enough to send you to the hospital.
Last edited by a moderator:
