hi everyone! my name is landon and i'm new here.
just thought i'd introduce myself before i start asking questions.
i've been feeding my african mantis crickets, and today i fed it two different kind of flies i caught in my backyard. a small fruit fly and a small housefly. my mantis ate both of them. i was looking at the mantis now and noticed several very tiny white worms inching around on the bottom of the container. could these be from eggs inside the housefly?? if so, should i be worried if my mantis ingested them? they won't hatch inside him or anything right? :?
just thought i'd introduce myself before i start asking questions.
i've been feeding my african mantis crickets, and today i fed it two different kind of flies i caught in my backyard. a small fruit fly and a small housefly. my mantis ate both of them. i was looking at the mantis now and noticed several very tiny white worms inching around on the bottom of the container. could these be from eggs inside the housefly?? if so, should i be worried if my mantis ingested them? they won't hatch inside him or anything right? :?
)... I have my doubts as to whether it was a parasitism as this would have killed the fly and hence the mantid would probably have refused to eat it. There's a *chance* they were in the fly and came out if the mantid ate it - but this is unlikely - and if this is the case, don't stress - the larvae are usually endoparasitic and hence will die soon anyway. If they were parasites of the mantid, it would be dead... so I think chances are they're fly maggots... If in doubt, keep in a warm place and feed on banana or something similar and wait about 2 weeks! the lifecycle of the drosophila is about 10 days- 2 weeks - then at the end you'll have more flies to feed it 
