Accommodation:
it’s best to keep these mantids around 22-25 C (71.6-77 F). Depending
where you live, room temperature may just be fine. Overheating can kill
the mantids. Keep the temperature cooler at night to lengthen the lifespan
of the mantis. Warmer temperature speeds up the metabolism of the mantis
and will shorten its life span…and in contrast, cooler temperature
slows its metabolism and lengthens the life span, but both extremes
could kill it. Keep humidity between 70-80%
Caging:
their cage should be well ventilated with lots of twigs for the mantis
to perch on. Put some tree bark in there for decoration and to simulate
their natural environment. They don’t require much room as they
are not active predators, but they do need room to molt. The suggested
height is usually 3x the mantis’ length and 2x for the width.
This species is very aggressive at all stages so nymphs should be separated
into different containers as soon as possible to prevent cannibalism.
Feeding: this species is not too picky, but make sure it has a varied
diet. Start out with fruit flies for nymphs and move to pinhead crickets
for larger nymphs and crickets, mealworms, wax worms, and other larger
insects for sub-adult and adults. It’s recommended that the size
of the feeder insect does not exceed 1/3 the mantis’ length. Although
they are voracious, they do not tackle large insects, and do not offer
them poisonous insects or wasps or bees as these could seriously harm
the mantis. To feed them, you can either drop the food inside the tank
and if the mantis is hungry, it’ll go after the prey…or
you can feed them by hand: use a pair of tweezers to hold the insect
and wave it in front of the mantis, if it’s hungry, it will snatch
it from the tweezers as soon as it sees it. Do not overfeed them, overfeeding
can and will shorten their life span. Feed them as much as it will eat
in one day and do not feed it for another 2 days. As for watering, this
type will get its fluid from its food, but it can sometimes be seen
drinking off droplets from the side of the cage so misting the cage
every once in a while is best.
Molting:
a mantis will stop eating a few days prior to its molt. Mantises
molt every 2-3 weeks as nymphs and the time in between each molt increases
as they get older…so their last molt into adulthood can sometimes
take as long as 3-4 weeks. It takes about 7 molts for females and about
6 for males. That’s why males tend to mature earlier than females
and so would die faster. During molting, it is vital that you do not
disturb them and also make sure that the humidity is at a safe level…too
much humidity can hinder the insect from drying out correctly and it
might end up with bent legs and crippled arms. The mantis will hang
upside down from a branch or the screen lid and will sometimes shake
or spasm violently. Then after a while, it worms out of its old skin
and will hang out to dry. Once it’s dried, it will resume eating
and being its normal self after a couple of days. I've never had a bad
molt with this species with frequent misting.
Reproduction:
select a suitable pair after 2 weeks since their last molt
into adulthood. It would be best to mate the mantids after 3-4 weeks
instead. 2 weeks may be too soon and may shorten the female’s
lifespan. Introduce the female into the male’s enclosure and leave
them alone. The introducing the male to the female by hand method does
not work very well. They are very skittish and will play dead once handled
or continually try to fly away. So just put a pair into a large container
and let them go at it. After a while of holding on, the male will bend
his abdomen down to connect with hers and mating will commence. Afterwards,
he will run away and he must be removed or else he’ll be eaten.
Ootheca:
after a week or so, the females will start laying her oothecae (plural
for ootheca) and will continue to lay more every 1-2 weeks. This species
can lay around 3-5 oothecae. After 8-10 weeks of incubation at 30 C
(86 F) and 70% humidity, about 40-60 nymphs will hatch out from each
ootheca. These can be fed fruit flies a day or two after hatching. Then
continue to care for them as this care sheet suggests.
Additional
Notes: I received 6 L3 nymphs about a month after they hatched.
They were still very small for L3, but took large fruit flies easily
and seem to be very active. Their dead display is very convincing and
I was able to roll them around on my hand as they lay folded up. Their
3rd molt comes not too long after I received them, but I had no way
of telling how long it took them since I did not know their last molt’s
date. They continue eating flies and some pinhead crickets. At this
stage, I’m keeping them separated due to their aggressive nature.
Their 4th molt comes 10 days after their last shed. All 6 nymphs molted
almost simultaneously. The larger nymphs still continue on their fly
diet with no problem. Their abdomen is slightly more cryptic and sex
determination is possible.
Their 5th shed comes 15 days later and the much larger nymphs show tiny
bud-wings of their future adult wings. Once again, they all shed within
1 day of each other. They are not too large for flies and are put on
a cricket diet. They greedily snatch crickets from my tweezers.
Their final shed came rather quickly. I've tried to slow down the male's
growth to synchronize with the females but they molted out earlier.
Nevertheless, a well matured male is better than an immature one. After
about 2 weeks, I noticed the mature females were giving off pheremones
and introduced them to males in separate containers. At first, it took
a while for the males to react. But after 2 days in the same container,
I spotted the males mounting the females. She did not react with violence
but merely let him continue to mate. The actually mating only took a
couple of hours and the males were removed afterwards. I also noticed
that the females continued to give off pheremones even after mating...perhaps
this is to lure more males to her, but I did not allow any more couplings.
No further mating was necessary, the first ootheca was laid 9 days after
mating, but the other female took 13 days. Their oothecae looked like
it laid in mid-air. I found them both hanging from the screen lid by
a thin string. I counted the eggs inside and it looks like there are
about 60 babies in each ootheca. The second ootheca was laid 7 days
after the first one. It looks shorter and I could only count about 40
eggs on it.
I would like to thank Evan for his wonderful caresheet. You can see more at mantisphotos.com
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