What NOT to feed your mantis?

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dgerndt

dgerndt

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Recently I've had an outbreak of large carpender ants in my house (mostly just my room), and I was wondering if it's okay to feed them to my mantids? But that also begs another question; what ISN'T okay to feed to my mantids? I know that I should be careful with bees or wasps and things that can bite (like big spiders and centipedes). But what other bugs out there are common and poisonous? I plan on feeding my mantids wild food once it becomes available and I suppose it's never too early to know what I shouldn't be feeding my pets.

 
The black carpenter ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, is a bad choice of food for mantids, because it is a trail layer, which means that it secretes formic acid that causes it to be left alone by mantids. Most insects that are noxious to vertebrates, like monarch and queen buterflies and stink bugs, are acceptable food for inverts, and as we have discussed before, their "warning coloration" is not observable by insects. I have also pointed out on numerous occasions that bees and wasps are enjoyed by mantids, who get an added bonus of pollen protein from the former. I suspect that the common prejudice against these insects stems more from fear of their stings to us than to the mantids. I used to mutilate the mouthparts of spiders to prevent them from injuring their captors but have long since stopped doing so. The mantids know how to look after themselves. They know better than we what potential prey to avoid. Let them decide.

 
Thanks, Phil, for the very informative answer. I knew that some species of ants create acids that make them bad for other bugs to eat, but I wasn't sure if carpenter ants were one of them. I learned that from the Insect episode of Life. I'll just keep squishing the ants. ;)

Good point, Hibicusmile! I'll be sure not to feed any people to my mantids! :lol:

 
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They know what they can eat. It is best to avoid things that can sting or bit hard, mainly for your benefit. I feed spiders often, no issues there. Many things like wasps have a hard exoskeleton that even mantids often don't like. Best to stick to grasshoppers, moths and the like.

 
Mouse pointers. As tempting as they might looks scooting across ones computer screens, my mantises have assured me they are full of nothing but empty promises when it comes to filling ones belly. :blink:

 
Thanks, Katnapper. I'm just trying to be a good pet owner. :)

LOL, Morbo! Yeah, I could see my mantids watching that for a good while before figuring out that it's not edible.

 
I'm curious about this too. Is there any kind of official list somewhere of what is not okay to feed a mantis? Some say biting/stinging bugs are dangerous to your mantids. Some say otherwise. What other bugs have formic acid or other toxins? I was out looking for bugs this week and I came upon a bunch of milkweed bugs, but I left them because I figured the milkweed sap might be poisonous to predators. Does anyone know if that's harmful to a mantis?

 
You found one of the very few insects that mantids won't eat, though cultivated milkweed bugs raised on other plants will be taken. The idea of poisonous animals is rarely to kill the predator but to have it associate the appearance of the bug with its bad taste in the future. Usually the colors of this strategy, aposetism, are yellow and red and black. Trail making ants that contain formic acid are also, as my friend Katnapper mentioned, distasteful to mantids, but little else is and the mantis will quickly let you know if it finds something distasteful.

It is untrue, with a few rare exceptions, that stinging insects will harm the mantids that they prey upon. I only recently discovered why. When a mantis grasps a bee or wasp, it manipulates the prey so that one raptorial claw squeezes the abdomen so that the string protrudes, thus rendering it it useless.I have fed hundreds of stinging insects and quickly gave up defanging and destinging them -- a rather disgusting practice and unnecessary. A greater danger from wild insects is from insecticides, and if an insect is taken in an area free from corpses and lives in captivity for a few hurs, the chances of it being poisoned are slim, so enjoy, and give your pets a smorgasbord! :D

 
That's a introduced European hornet Vespa crabo. I have them here to. They are quite formidable! I have seen them take out adult

Narrow-winged mantids before.

 

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