Allthingsterrarium
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- Joined
- Jun 10, 2018
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- 107
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Hey guys! I was given two mantis egg cases that I originally intended to release into the backyard and in addition keep and raise a couple of them. Well as it turned out, these were egg cases of the potentially invasive Chinese mantis/Tenodera Sinensis so even though they were being sold in a local garden center and are probably already established in the area I'm not going to release them just to be safe. In particular to protect the monarchs that breed in my neighbor's milkweed garden and there's no doubt an adult female could kill a few monarchs in her lifetime. The Chinese mantis is still an awesome species though, like any mantis, so I'm going to raise a couple and maybe feed the rest to my other terrarium animals or even let the natural cannibalism you guys told me about take place once a few get bigger and see what happens. I've since obtained two native Carolina mantis egg cases that I'll go ahead with the original plan of releasing most and keeping a few but they have yet to hatch and in the meantime one of my Tenodera ooths hatched two days ago. I'm noticing a huge lack of voracious behavior in the nymphs though and I want to make sure there's nothing wrong with them. I released a whole bunch of fruit flies into the big jar they hatched in but they've taken little if any notice of them even after two days. My plan is to keep 10 in hopes that at least one will make it to adulthood and give another 10 to my cousins so I singled out 20 of the 100 or so that hatched and put each one in his/her own little condiment cup which for now they still have lots of room in. I tried to give one a pinhead cricket but it absolutely lost its' mind and freaked out, running all over the cup despite being twice the pinhead's size. I removed the cricket and put in a fruit fly (which has proven painfully tedious) and then proceeded to put a fruit fly in all 20 cups. At least two of the nymphs ate their fruit fly though one definitely didn't finish the whole thing while some others kept trying to grab it and failing and others still were either scared of it or couldn't care less. I checked a little while ago and most of the cups still have a fruit fly in them even many hours later and it's clear the nymphs have been exploring their surroundings and no doubt noticed them. Later in the night I put a tiny balled up piece of wet paper towel in the cups with them for water and some successfully took a drink while others acted just as obliviously to the water as to the food. Maybe the water will help their appetite over the next couple of days but is this natural? Is something wrong here? You would think new hatchlings would be eager for their first meal, especially after a few hours of exoskeleton hardening.
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