Tips on getting a mantis to eat crickets or locusts

[Wonderpants]

My adult male orchid doesn’t seem to have eaten for a few days and I’m a bit worried about him being hungry. Normally I just pick him up, put him back down on the substrate, and then get a cricket or locust to run past him which he’ll grab if he’s hungry, but in the last few days he seems rather unsettled. If I try to pick him up and put him in the floor, he just tries to climb up my hand to get higher, or even flies off, and even keeps walking about on the mesh lid, when he was just sitting immobile before most of the time. I’ve even tried putting him and a cricket on my hand at the same time, or putting one on my hand and holding it up to him when he’s on the mesh, but he doesn’t seem interested. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[MantisGirl13]

Male mantids dont eat very much. If it's only been a few days then I'd give him more time.

- MantisGirl13 

 

[Wonderpants]

Ok thanks 

 

[MantisMart]

Yea, I just got my first male and I was very surprised at the slow rate in which they ate compared to females, he is not taking much food from me either. He is much more interested in climbing on the tweezers.