Hi folks,
I'm new here but I've been doing some lurking to research mantids before getting one. Today I bought an orchid mantis. I tried to pick a female but it was very hard to count the segments. She (if it's a she) is about 15 mm right now. She's quite active, moving around in a manner that seems cautious but curious. I managed to feed her a little banana by holding it in front of her but she hasn't shown any interest in the springtails I offered so tomorrow I'm getting a culture of fruit flies (I thought I'd have that by today but things outside of my control put a stop to that).
The thing is that I already have a 18x18x24 Exo Terra set up as a tropical forest vivarium. It maintains temperatures around 26-28 deg. C during the day and about 23 during the nights. It has a sprawling but not too dense vegetation and a rather diverse established microfauna (at least one tiny spider, a number of woodlice, springtails and various other tiny bugs).
Right now I've put my mantis in a deli cup with a mesh lid inside of the vivarium so that she can benfit from the warmth and humidity inside it. I've read advice stating that small mantids should not be kept in large enclosures because it might make it difficult for them to find food. But in my vivarium there's a rich microfauna living on the floor and I plan on releasing a number of fruit flies into it when she's due to feed. With all those potential prey around, shouldn't she be able to find more than enough food despite the size? Also, I usually have a couple of tiny flies in there (none right now though), they usually buzz around all day long so if she's patient she should be able to catch them by taking up station on the vegetation (I have a large decorative hollow log she could climb and hang from to hunt flies).
I know I'm not supposed to leave an abundance of food with her but these are not crickets and cannot pose any conceivable threat. I'm well familiar with all the organisms presently inside the vivarium, the only predator I know of is the tiny spider and I know that 2-3 mm is its maximum size since I've had those in my previous viv for almost a year.
So, what do you experts think? Keep the orchid mantis inside the deli cup in the vivarium or let her loose to explore the rich world available for her?
I'm new here but I've been doing some lurking to research mantids before getting one. Today I bought an orchid mantis. I tried to pick a female but it was very hard to count the segments. She (if it's a she) is about 15 mm right now. She's quite active, moving around in a manner that seems cautious but curious. I managed to feed her a little banana by holding it in front of her but she hasn't shown any interest in the springtails I offered so tomorrow I'm getting a culture of fruit flies (I thought I'd have that by today but things outside of my control put a stop to that).
The thing is that I already have a 18x18x24 Exo Terra set up as a tropical forest vivarium. It maintains temperatures around 26-28 deg. C during the day and about 23 during the nights. It has a sprawling but not too dense vegetation and a rather diverse established microfauna (at least one tiny spider, a number of woodlice, springtails and various other tiny bugs).
Right now I've put my mantis in a deli cup with a mesh lid inside of the vivarium so that she can benfit from the warmth and humidity inside it. I've read advice stating that small mantids should not be kept in large enclosures because it might make it difficult for them to find food. But in my vivarium there's a rich microfauna living on the floor and I plan on releasing a number of fruit flies into it when she's due to feed. With all those potential prey around, shouldn't she be able to find more than enough food despite the size? Also, I usually have a couple of tiny flies in there (none right now though), they usually buzz around all day long so if she's patient she should be able to catch them by taking up station on the vegetation (I have a large decorative hollow log she could climb and hang from to hunt flies).
I know I'm not supposed to leave an abundance of food with her but these are not crickets and cannot pose any conceivable threat. I'm well familiar with all the organisms presently inside the vivarium, the only predator I know of is the tiny spider and I know that 2-3 mm is its maximum size since I've had those in my previous viv for almost a year.
So, what do you experts think? Keep the orchid mantis inside the deli cup in the vivarium or let her loose to explore the rich world available for her?
