vegan alternative for mantises?

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Mime454 said:
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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Maybe a person could make a meat like thing from a plant and maybe other things and not using meat.
 
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My question is just "why?" Sure it's probably possible, but unlike moths fed on synthetic foods and fruit flies raised and cultured in man made substances, what would be the purpose of going through the trouble to feed mantids fake food? Let's say in a fantastic world the mantids "evolved" to readily eat the fake stuff. They'll just be dependent on the fake food and reject real food, meaning they can't be released in the environment. This thread is a waste of time and this guy is obviously trolling. I could see if prey weren't readily available for a mantis.

And btw, I would assume after a few generations, maybe the mantis will lose it's raptors and revert back to a cockroach. :clown: :tt2:

 
MantidLord said:
Let's say in a fantastic world the mantids "evolved" to readily eat the fake stuff. They'll just be dependent on the fake food and reject real food, meaning they can't be released in the environment.
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First, releasing mantids is a bad idea for the local population and depending on what and where can be illegal. Second, hornworms adapted to eating brown mushy goo off the bottom of a deli cup do just fine on tomato leaves. You have to adapt the synthetic food to the animal, within reason it doesn't really work the other way around.
 
If you are able to make the food then feed it to the mantid or mantids (I would use just a few, like three) and hand feed them using a chopstick, stick or something (this is hard and often takes a long time and it seems to depend on the species and age and the personality) and have roaches, moths and/or other insects to feed them if they are not doing well. I do not think it will do much harm if you do not let them starve and if it is not toxic to the mantids. :pinch: Maybe this helps, but it is not much.

 
Orin said:
First, releasing mantids is a bad idea for the local population and depending on what and where can be illegal. Second, hornworms adapted to eating brown mushy goo off the bottom of a deli cup do just fine on tomato leaves. You have to adapt the synthetic food to the animal, within reason it doesn't really work the other way around.
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How is releasing mantids a bad idea? I do it all the time, releasing mantids back into the area where I've found them. He never stated which species, but Chinese and Euros are found nearly everywhere so he can surely release them. Besides exotic species, and maybe Florida, what place prohibits you from releasing already established insects back into the environment? As for the second statement, that may be true. Still, I don't see the purpose in doing this. It's like trying to create a synthetic casing around mantid eggs that keeps them warm during the winter and protects them from other elements.

 
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.
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Paradoxica said:
you sound like you've done this before. how did that work out for you?
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Look up the definition for "Gryllidae".... ;)

 
happy1892 said:
Maybe a person could make a meat like thing from a plant and maybe other things and not using meat.
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I don't deny that humans can be vegan. That's not what I said. We're omnivores.

A praying mantis is an apex predator, so trying to make a vegan mantis would be like trying to make a coprophagus human.

 
MantidLord said:
How is releasing mantids a bad idea? I do it all the time, releasing mantids back into the area where I've found them.
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If you found them in your area releasing them back into that area should not be a problem (though some people may disagree since your feeder crickets can have viruses your local mantis population doesn't).
 
Orin said:
If you found them in your area releasing them back into that area should not be a problem (though some people may disagree since your feeder crickets can have viruses your local mantis population doesn't).
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Yeah I was thinking that. Unless you release some type of virus but even still, the local population should have enough genetic diversity to survive something like that. And in dealing with introduced species like Euros and Chinese, even if a local population was devastated, it would soon be repopulated by mantids from neighboring areas.

 
MantidLord said:
Yeah I was thinking that. Unless you release some type of virus but even still, the local population should have enough genetic diversity to survive something like that. And in dealing with introduced species like Euros and Chinese, even if a local population was devastated, it would soon be repopulated by mantids from neighboring areas.
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If it killed all of the mantids in a big area then I would guess it would keep spreading.
 
Mime454 said:
I don't deny that humans can be vegan. That's not what I said. We're omnivores.

A praying mantis is an apex predator, so trying to make a vegan mantis would be like trying to make a coprophagus human.
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Maybe people can make meat without meat. A human could not grow without meat or something like that. A human baby would die without animal protein.
ChumpSnatcher said:
That mantis would be much happier eating bugs out of the trashcan you found it on.
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At least happy enough hahaha!
 
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happy1892 said:
If it killed all of the mantids in a big area then I would guess it would keep spreading.
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If it's a virus, maybe, maybe not. It depends on what you consider "big". There will most likely be a population that is resistant to the virus and that population may migrate to the area where the mantids were decimated. Euros, Chinese, and Mediterraneans have spread to new areas before, they can do it again.

 
MantidLord said:
If it's a virus, maybe, maybe not. It depends on what you consider "big". There will most likely be a population that is resistant to the virus and that population may migrate to the area where the mantids were decimated. Euros, Chinese, and Mediterraneans have spread to new areas before, they can do it again.
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Oh my! Why are they so different from each other that some die from a sickness that others do not? Is it a small difference?
 
I have read the whole thing. I don't really understand why everyone's giving him such a hard time. I understand that it can be hard to watch people plan/do something you think is completely ridiculous and could never see yourself doing, but please, if he wants to waste his time, so be it. Let him do what he wants.

With that said, i myself do not think this will work, but keep an open mind.

I for one would love to see this work, not because i would do it, but because how cool would a fruit fly sized robot walking around with edible mantis food on it? Pretty damn cool!

 

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