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.

This is the gray mantis i found at P.Dickson the other day
Any idea on the species?