Mantids Care Sheet

Introduction.

Mantids are a group of 1800 carnivorous insects. Most mantids are from tropical countries although a few do occur in cooler climates. Their closest relatives are the stick insects, cockroach and grasshoppers. Like their relatives, the mantids undergo simple or incomplete metamorphosis, which means they do not have a maggot or caterpillar but go through several stages all of which look like miniature, wingless adults. The young should be fed on fruit flies (Drosophila spp.), pin head crickets, or other small insects. Its best if they always have some food to eat, although they can last quite a while without food. Most species are very aggressive towards each other and if kept together, one will eat the other, except Dead Leaf mantis and Ghost mantis species, which for the most part can leave together provided they are not too hungry. As they grow and become more hardy, they can be given larger prey almost any insects will be eaten. Some species even eat prey as large as themselves.

Food and its effects:

It is important to give a variety of food to your mantids in order for their droppings not to smell. If you are feeding your mantids only crickets, their droppings will smell a little. It seems like a good idead to feed them Grasshoppers, but don't be fulled!... grasshoppers contain potensial paracites that will kill your mantis when they come out, just see the 4 min long movie here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesYpFdGSTY The best feed for the mantis is Cockroaches, as they have even less paracites then Crickets. I try to feed my mantids Madagascar Hissing cockroaches (for bigger ones) and Lobster cockroaches (for smaller ones).

Much too often, mantids have black spots on their body appearing. This is caused by internal parasites that come from crickets. This can be avoided by feeding them Cockroaches or Flies instead. Shortly after the black spot appears on the mantis, they will die.

For adult females it is very important to offer high protein foods, for them to froduce lerger oothecas. Wax Worms, and Blue Bottled flys have the most ammount of protein.

Sexing your mantids:

Males will have 5 or more segmemts on their abdomen, females less then 5 segments on their abdomen. With some experience, it is possible to tell their sex from L3- L4 just by looking at them, since females have more rounder abdomen.

Housing:

As the mantis grows it will shed its skin several times, becoming almost twice larger as before at each stage, antill it matures. A general rule, the terarium's walls on each side should be no smaller then the full grown mantis's length times 2, and The distance from top to bottom should be atleast 3 times the size of the mantis.

Equipment:

Most species need to be kept at atleast temperature of 20-25°C during day time and 16- 20°C during night time. The best thing to do is to use an under tank heater (UTH under tank heater, Heat tape, Heat rope, etc.).

Temperatures and Humidity:

Most praying mantids are from tropical countries, so its very important to keep them warm, as a general rule 20°C to 25°C.

Incubating oothecas:

The simplest way to incubate an ootheca is to take a plastic jar, drill 2 or more holes like shown in the picture below, for tying a thread onto the lid.

Then take a needle, and poke it thrue the top of the ootheca (try not to injure any egg sacks), and hang it on the thread.

Add 2- 3 layers of paper towel on the bottom to keep the moisture. You can also add some plastic branches, not real ones as they tend to make an ootheca moldy after some time.

Recommended Substrates:

You can use napkins, it is easy to clean and looks pretty good.

You can also use Eco Earth as a substrate.

Breeding Your Mantids:

Sexing babie mantids is difficult but fairly easy ones they become adults. Males got eight segments on the underside of abdomen, females got six. After two weeks adults can be mated. It is advisable to use a large cage when mating them, and feeding them well beforehand is essential otherwise the female will eat the male. Mating may occur immediately or at times it may take the male a day or so to make his approach. Mating can last for more then a day, so it is recommended to keep on feeding them even while they are mating, so that the female won't eat the male. If the male is not removed just after mating, the female will eat him shortly after. The female will lay ootheca (the egg-case mantids lay is called ootheca), depending on the specie this may produce 30 to 300 young mantids. Depending on the specie, hatching usually takes between 3 and 6 month. The female will lay several oothecae, usually about six and does not need to be mated with a male again. Some species like Brunneria Borealis do not need a male to produce fertile oothecae.