Urgent help with katydids -Yen?

[Orin]

I know Yen and some people were rearing the pink katydids. What do you give them to lay eggs in? How do you maintain the eggs? The reason this is urgent is I found an aberrant yellow-spotted female and time runs out quickly.

 

[mantisman 230]

The ovipositor suggests they lay their eggs in the stems of a plant, but could be wrong.

 

[Orin]

Yes, the issue is figuring out what artificial egg laying surface will work. Females will die without laying eggs as they are very picky.

 

[mantisman 230]

Hmm, it would have to be on one of it's foodplants.

 

[Orin]

If she laid eggs in the usual foodplants she'd have already laid a bunch of eggs. I appreciate your interest in chatting though I am hoping to find Yen or someone who actually knows the answer. Funny thing is knew the answer 20 years ago (there are two answers) but I just can't remember.

 

[mantisman 230]

I'll have to ask Yen, I'd reckon he would have what you seek.

 

[mantisman 230]

Yen said use Damp coco fiber substrate

 

[Orin]

This female is a Microcentrum surface egg-layer same as the pinks, not a substrate layer (maybe he was thinking I was asking about Neobarrettia).

 

[mantisman 230]

nope, I said oblong wing katydid. Beats me, however I think expirimenting with multiple types of trees would possibly come up with an answer, kinda like finding what my true katydid ( Pterophylla camellifolia) would feed on.

 

[Orin]

I'll give it a shot but I remember there was something like toilet paper rolls you could put in the cage they'd glue the eggs to whereas finding the right vegetation was more tricky because it had to be live.

 

[hibiscusmile]

try this search Orin: http://entomologytoday.org/?s=KATYDIDS

 

[twolfe]

I kept pink katydids for a while. Unfortunately the eggs never hatched. I saw mine mating several times, but I couldn't initially find any eggs. I got up in the middle of the night and discovered the female was depositing the eggs in the terrarium foam back. I had to dig them out with a knife. I found several eggs in the foam back.

http://blog.hmns.org/tag/pink-katydid/

If you haven't found an answer, you could check with the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Good luck!

 

[womantis]

did you find an answer?