If it what mantismania said the sp was... it really nice ...a really nice green colour mantis ... man cant wait to c it grow....

Orait bro, u does have a point there, will change the substrate right away

"Too much moisture can result in a sick mantis due to bacteria buildup from droppings and food remains mixed with collected moisture."


mm.. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info

How long have you been into mantids, Ash and Mantismania?

This post has been edited by yltanisaac: Feb 20 2010, 12:31 AM

Just started a couple of months back and this guy MM poison me further with his mantis pics....lol

Guys here are some photos on how I transfer wild fruitflies and phorid flies from their culture container to a mantis enclosure. Before I first cultured them, I lured and trapped them using some medium I made. You can also use bananas and other fruits to do this. Just put the medium in a container and close that container with a lid that has one hole about 1 cm or less in diameter. Leave that somewhere and you'll eventually end up with wild fruitflies.

Once you see a good number, close the hole on the lid with a sponge and leave the container alone. You'll soon see maggots which will pupate pretty fast and you'll have thousands of flies within a week or so. Keep this going with new cultures. I use medium made from bee pollen, crushed oatmeal, etc.

This is a photo of a wild fruitfly culture container. Note the two sponges (one on top, another on the side) used to cover holes I made. The small hole on the side is used only once, i.e. when I transfer some fruitflies from one culture to a freshly started one. The large hole on top is used to transfer the fruitflies to mantis enclosures.


This is what I use to transfer wild fruitflies. It's just a small aquarium tube attached to a small funnel.


I make a hole using a one-hole punch on each of the container I have which are used for keeping nymphs or small mantids. When I'm not transferring flies, this hole will be covered with a small sponge.



When transferring flies, I just place the funnel on the lid and just push the sponge a bit. I don't take out the whole sponge because if I do, it'll be very difficult to put it back without having escapees. Also, this helps control the number of flies transferred. If you take out the whole sponge, too many flies will swarm into the funnel.



Hopefully this will help you guys out with small feeders.

Great one Mantis mania.. That's some great work

I've read bout putting fruitflies in fridge for around 2min so they will become inactive or even ''faint'' for a while and get back to life after a few minutes in normal temperature
Did u use this method before, M.Mania?

Yeah that'll work if you have just a handful of mantids to feed. I've got nearly 200 mantids and I can't keep going back to the fridge to freeze them lol.

hi guys..
here is one of the orchid mantis that mold a week ago before the cny

thanks alot mantismania for the useful info.....

Where you get that funnel MMania, guys u saw it sell at KL? otherwise we have to kick in our creativity again...dont let you brain shrink...lol

I bought it at Cold Storage Ash. Comes in a pack of three different sizes. I had to do some cutting to it though because the shape was a but odd.

Anyone here have a male D.Lobata can borrow for breeding loan?

I'm too. ..even my female can't wait and laid an infertile ooth .

So u got D Lobata d, ryo.. purchase or ift from friend..kepochi a bit......lol

Nah, was thinking to buy but if cant breed it then no point to buy....

I don't have any adult males at the moment but I do have male nymphs. Have you tried pairing up any Deroplatys sp.? Can be quite difficult to induce them to mate.

Then you may want to show/brief us, as you have been succesfull

Mantismania, of cause i don't have experience cause im still new but i can assure u that i will do a lot of research regarding this genus if i decided to mate them
Now im thinking to get D.Lobata or P.Paradoxa

For adult males, you need to wait for about 1-2 weeks after their last molt to pair them up. For adult females, around 3-4 weeks after their last molt. Main problem faced is that the males will not be interested to mate at all. Sometimes they don't even notice the female. You need to get the female to move around a lot in front of the male and make sure there are no other distractions such as a lot of movement surrounding them.

If the male notices the female and makes an attempt to go towards her, then half the battle is won. Next is to wait for him to mount and eventually connect. Even when they're already on the female, it will take some time for him to connect. This will usually take hours.

That's fantastic Ryo. I'm sure you'll do fine. Perhaps you should try and pair some common species first to sort of have a feel on how to pair mantids up.

Definitely if i have a chance to keep a pair of em...
The two ''brown'' mantis my fren plan to post to me dead at his home today