vegan alternative for mantises?

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Orin said:
You probably don't realize there are artificial diets for a number of giant silk moths that feed only on specific host plants which would be much more difficult to emulate than a generalist predator diet. The mix itself would probably be very simple, it's the execution that would be difficult.
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So you do not need meat? LOL! Wow. OK, I have to read this! At least I lasted a while hehehe. Actually I really have to know how it is done to believe it... maybe not. Are you sure or do you just guess that from knowing just a little? Oh, and Kayimbo you can just put the food into the mouth of the mantis (that would be easier I think but sometimes it seems imposible haha!). What about baby mantids? You will need small robots (fruit fly size?). Can you do that? Just curious.
 
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kayimbo said:
ah i dunno. genetics can adapt pretty quickly. you know the whole human cow milk example. if crickets can live on just some water and 1 or 2 types of food, their requirements for nutritional diversity must not be very high. I'm hoping that extends to most insects in general?!?!?

either way, i'll make my paste of whatever i can figure out, and if i can get these two to breed, see how many of the nymphs live from the paste ######.

Any input on what types of food should go into their food, or how to make a robot small enough a nymph would be attracted to it would be welcome.
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Oh my you should know that this is a big change and not a little one. I do not know anything about this so sorry. Oh, and crickets are omnivores, mantids are carnivores I guess that makes a difference but I do not know. What do you mean one or two types of foods? A Sphodromantis could live on just roaches.
Mime454 said:
I don't know why this thread is still being taken seriously. Think about it. You are honestly discussing how to build tiny robots laced with impossible food to circumvent millions of years of Evolution so that some 21st Century morals can be imposed on an insect with a "brain" the size of a pinto bean.
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Is it not too hard LOL!?
massaman said:
I think the mantis is a perfect predator created to hunt and eat live prey and if it was designed to eat vegetable matter then it would of been found by now but most insects are cannibalistic or some omnivores!
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Mantids do not strike perfectly, at least usually. "if it was designed to eat vegetable matter then it would of been found by now but most insects are cannibalistic or some omnivores!" What does this have to do with this? That does sound right but what does it have to do with this? Maybe the food mantids need are not just in animals..........I do not know.
 
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wow this forum is really wonderful. Thank you for all the responses. I assure you after i'm done with this experiment i'll move onto something more traditional.

The information about the fat content was really helpful. I think i'm going to start emailing some entomologist professors and see if i can get some more details. I'll check in on this thread from now and again but i'll probably be silent till some progress or failure is made.

really its the micro nutrients i'm worried about. kind of like how cats will straight up die without taurine, and i think plant sources of taurine were only utilized pretty recently.

 
theres a 99.9 percent chance that this idea will fail and I would never attempt it with anything other then maybe a chinese mantis or european!

 
This can be achieved but making the food or paste is a very long and tedious process. As well, your mantids will have to be fed by hand at least once daily. Do you have a food processor and a good organics store close to home by chance? The hardest part is getting milk kefir grains and organic white honey. The basic recipe to make a months supply of food is to mix 1 teaspoon of milk kefir grains, 1/2 teaspoon of organic white honey, 3 grams of fermented soybean paste (3 grams per every 1 teaspoon of milk kefir grains), 1/4 teaspoon of Carrot Powder (good for the eyes), 1/8 teaspoon of Shavegrass herb, 1/8 teaspoon of shepherds purse herb, 4 tablespoons of pureed Gryllidae. Make sure to mist them twice daily as this will help them purge their systems of any toxin build-up from their previous diets.

Good luck Kayimbo, those are 2 lucky mantids!

 
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I have not read through all of this because it's entirely ridiculous.

And Kayimbo is about to make me lose my religion and cuss, thereby breaking my promise to Hibiscus.

I think this person is just trolling!

 
fleurdejoo said:
I have not read through all of this because it's entirely ridiculous.

And Kayimbo is about to make me lose my religion and cuss, thereby breaking my promise to Hibiscus.

I think this person is just trolling!
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I know this is pretty ridiculous, but it's not impossible... no need to lose your religion and cuss over an experiment.Think of how far technology has come since the 50's... all that achieved but you guys don't think a diet can be made for an insect. Hmmm....

 
idahomantid said:
This can be achieved but making the food or paste is a very long and tedious process. As well, your mantids will have to be fed by hand at least once daily. Do you have a food processor and a good organics store close to home by chance? The hardest part is getting milk kefir grains and organic white honey. The basic recipe to make a months supply of food is to mix 1 teaspoon of milk kefir grains, 1/2 teaspoon of organic white honey, 3 grams of fermented soybean paste (3 grams per every 1 teaspoon of milk kefir grains), 1/4 teaspoon of Carrot Powder (good for the eyes), 1/8 teaspoon of Shavegrass herb, 1/8 teaspoon of shepherds purse herb, 4 tablespoons of pureed Gryllidae. Make sure to mist them twice daily as this will help them purge their systems of any toxin build-up from their previous diets.

Good luck Kayimbo, those are 2 lucky mantids!
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you sound like you've done this before. how did that work out for you?

 
Mantis will usually accept offering of fruit..

But they are a hunter at heart.. If Your trying to raise a lion as a sheep

don't expect them to turn out how you want

 
Paradoxica said:
you sound like you've done this before. how did that work out for you?
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You've probably done it too if you've raised inverts in captivity. Do you think fruit flies eat potato flakes or corn mean in nature? Few, if any, of our captive critters have a diet that's not synthetic. Have you seen mantids under rocks eating house crickets? The original posters idea is difficult, not peculiar.
 
Yes, but you said you hadn't read the thread, I admit it's not peculiar to draw conclusions on something you haven't read, people do it all the time. The peculiar reference was to a synthetic diet since that's what nearly all our pets subsist on.

 
fleurdejoo said:
I have not read through all of this because it's entirely ridiculous.

And Kayimbo is about to make me lose my religion and cuss, thereby breaking my promise to Hibiscus.

I think this person is just trolling!
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NAA! I do not think he did this to make anyone upset or anything.
 
Orin said:
Yes, but you said you hadn't read the thread, I admit it's not peculiar to draw conclusions on something you haven't read, people do it all the time. The peculiar reference was to a synthetic diet since that's what nearly all our pets subsist on.
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Prayimg mantids are adapted to eat meat. I imagine that trying to make a vegan praying mantis is equivalent to trying to make a coprophagous human.

This isn't a mantis eating a cricket(substituting one meat for another) this is trying to force a food down them that they are evolutionarily unprepared for.

 

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