The beast (at last!!!)

This morning, finally..., I was looking at an adult Idolomantis diabolica male (MY Idolomantis diabolica ). It took him 66 days before he finally decided to shed :shock:

He is awesome, the greatest mantis specimen I have ever seen, huge (definitely over 12 cm/4,8 inch) 8) and hopefully the father of lots of little devils flowers...

I'm simply ecstatic :shock: :shock: and couldn't wait to take some pictures:







Some older pictures:

subadult Idolo male (watch the thick antennae :? )



subadult Idolo female (with slender antennae :lol: )



edit: translated the whole message :wink:

Fantastic! Now all you need is a female

He allready has a female... subadult female... the bottom pic is her to be exact..

He forgot to translate "vrouw" into "female"

Excellent pics and can't wait for him to submit pics of the female when she has finally become an adult.

Good work Steven :wink:

Ohhhhhhhh yeah!! Keep us updated with how the pair go And..of coruse...a successful mating!

Nice mantis! He's perfect.

Quite an acheivement getting these through to adult.

So has it turned green yet or is it staying brown as it matures? I was under the impression adults were always green. Thats probably because the first pics I saw of these mantids on a website showed brown nymphs and then pics of green adults and i've never seen green nymphs. Also I read something about them maturing during the 'rainy season' when presumably the leaves on trees start to grow and green is better.

A stupid question but is the measurement of 12cm to the wing tips or end of his abdomen. Reason I ask is mine is subadult (thick antenae) but is only around 6cm and I can't imagine it will double in size. I suppose they do vary quite alot as do some other mantids.

Do you think the female one is going to be even bigger? I look forward to more pics.

And good luck with breeding them.

Yeah, definately. Let us know how it goes. He looks really nice!

Thanks,

Eros

He forgot to translate "vrouw" into "female"

Click to expand...

Oops, I changed that

So has it turned green yet or is it staying brown as it maturesA stupid question but is the measurement of 12cm to the wing tips or end of his abdomen. Reason I ask is mine is subadult (thick antenae) but is only around 6cm and I can't imagine it will double in size. I suppose they do vary quite alot as do some other mantids.

Click to expand...

He didn't turn green yet, simply because he moulted this morning. I was told however that he should turn green/purple in the next few weeks, so I just have to wait...

About the size: it's 12 cm from the top of the head to the top of the wings. Without wings he is something of 10 cm.. The female should be considerably larger (14 cm), we'll just have to see that. That is if she matures, because her eyes have darkened a lot a couple of weeks ago and I am a bit worried

I really would love one of these species but Ian does not appear to have any in :wink:

Have some ooths coming soon if you would like to reserve any, or, just wait for the nymphs!

Well done mate....my male is 63 days and still feeding. My female is doing really well and at about 50 days.

I see you have straw attached to the roof of the cage, any other branches in there? Any other tips for a successful moult? I've got mine in a mesh cage and I'm spraying the cage daily,

thanks

Alan

Got an ETA of when you will will get them in Ian? I am after some nymphs so I can't wait till you get them in.

@ellroy: just the straw, no other branches so that they are obliged to hang from the ceiling. I completely shielded the cage to minimize stress.

About the humidity, they stand in my aquariumroom so the humidity is already high. On the bottom of the cage I have plastic with lots of toilet paper on which is constantly soaking wet (when they are about to mould) :wink:

Good luck with yours!

On the bottom of the cage I have plastic with lots of toilet paper on which is constantly soaking wet (when they are about to mould)

Click to expand...

I use soggy bog roll too. seems to work well, although it doesnt look too pretty covered in mantis poo and fly wings. I take it you mean moult. :wink:

Hi.

The (more realistic) sizes are: male 8-9 cm from head to tip of abdomen, female 10,5 cm from head to abdomen. The wings surpass the abdomen by 1,5 (F) to 2 cm (M). Still large enough, I think.

The adults become green in 1-2 weeks. We had never brown adults and never green larvae. The larvae may be brown, ochraceous, yellowish, grey, reddish or even blackish. But never green.

Regards,

Christian

Hello Devils flower,

The male will take like 3-4 days before it gets his coloration, you are going to love it.

regards

FT

@Christian: I really think my male is 10 cm, I'll measure him this week (he probably is this big because I gave him everything he wanted: excellent food, environment, TLC, ... :wink: ).

I should say though that I have another subadult male which is considerably smaller than my adult male when he was that age...

@Francisco: I am already loving it (now 3 days later), he's starting to get greener and greener :twisted:

Cheerz,

Steven

At last!!! My female has made it to adulthood!!! Even though I hadn't got round to rigging up any straw it was a successful moult, can't believe how big she is!!!

Will try to get some pics this week....fingers crossed for the male now!

Alan

Awesome Alan!!!

Congrats and good luck with your male :wink:

My female didn't make it however (the one with the black eyes), so my male is horny as heck... Pitty you don't live a bit closer.

ps: I have another sub couple, so I'm -literally- putting all my money on these :twisted:

Sorry to hear about your female Steven but I'm sure what you've learnt will go a long way to a successful second pair.

Can't wait for her to turn green!

Ironically, my adult female C.gemmatus died today.....she turned adult in october so I guess it was old age. Only the Idolo's left now so they will have all my attention.

Certainly a shame we are not close enough for a breeding loan.....I know of someone who was looking for adults for breeding but he was not interested in a loan only buying the adults.....nevermind!

Must get the male fattened up now.....had a bit of a fly shortage but he seems quite fond of maggots, plus its warm enough to catch stuff outside now.....he tucked into a juicy hoverfly earlier!

Cheers

Alan