Today's Winter Findings

[SkittishMale]

I went on a walk today because it was sunny and not very windy. The snow was knee deep due to yesterday's huge snowstorm. I was walking by an area of development where they had installed a temporary fence made with that landscape fabric stuff. Since I found that mantids like to lay their ooths on it, I kept my eye on it as I walked down the sidewalk and I collected two ooths from it! The late afternoon walk also brought a winter resident bird to my surprise, an American Tree Sparrow.

The photo is the two Mantis religiosa ooths I collected today.

 

[dmina]

Awesome find.. a very productive walk... are you going to hatch them now? or are you going t wait closer to spring?

 

[SkittishMale]

They are in my fridge right now because I haven't decided if it would be a good idea to hatch them now. They have been in winter temperature for around 6-8 weeks since the beginning of December so they may have been cold for long enough but still not sure if I should wait until at least March.

 

[CosbyArt]

Congrats on the ooth finds!

I know the ooths I had that had a cold period (diapause) of only 3 weeks cut the incubating time in half, see my records below - to the normal incubating time-frame versus no diapause. So with 6 to 8 weeks of diapause that should be more than adequate if you want to incubate them.

The wild ooths I found and hatched were in diapause (cold) for 3 weeks, and hatched in incubation in 6 weeks (43 days). Ooths of the same species without any diapause hatched in 12 weeks of incubation (81 days). I guess all my figures/record keeping are handy for something. They are Stagmomantis carolina, but have very similar hatch times. As you can see 3 weeks of diapause of the wild ooths I found/hatched was enough to trigger the wintering/diapause effect.