I would like to thank Evan for his wonderful caresheet. You can
checkout his website at www.mantisphotos.com
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Acontiothespis Concinna - Ant Mantis CaresheetAppearance:
this mantis lives to mimic ants, fire ants to be
specific. The nymphs are incredibly fun to raise as they look
exactly like ants, all the way down to the mandibles. As they
get older, they gradually lose their bright red coloring and
begin to sport green and brown markings. The mature adults
are green in color and look nothing like ants. Females have
small black and orange markings at the end of the wings and
males have dark coloring along the entire wing.
Sexing:
males are much skinnier than females and have long transparent
wings. This species can be sexed after the 4th molt, they
are too small and too skittish at any earlier stage. This
is a small species. The males grow up to 1 inch long and the
female will only surpass that by a few millimeters.
Accomodation:
this species needs high humidity, especially for nymphs of
all stages. Keep the humidity level at 80% to ensure proper
molting. Temperature is not real important, but keep it around
30C (86F) and keep it slightly colder at night. And as always,
colder temperature slows down the metabolism of the mantis
and lengthens its lifespan.
Caging:
keep the hatchlings in a small container lined with paper
towel from bottom to top and keep this substrate continuously
wet by spraying/misting twice a day. This ensures that they
get proper humidity. I have kept them in both soil and paper
towel substrate and have had more luck with the paper towel
method. Also put lots of twigs and sticks in there for the
mantids to climb, but do not overcrowd the container. Adults
should be kept in a large environment at least 3x their length
all around. Females should be separated as soon as they can
be sexed, but males can continue to live together.
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Feeding:
this species needs no coaxing to eat. Hatchlings will readily tackle
fruit flies by the second day and will continue to eat well until
they molt. After the second molt, you may consider upgrading their
food to the larger fruit flies (d. hydei), they will continue to
eat normally and as adults, you can once again upgrade to house
flies or crickets or anything else that they can catch. Make sure
that there is plenty of food available, even if the mantids are
full...females are more inclined to cannibalize if it's in their
favor.
Molting:
just like all mantids, they molt upside down when the time comes.
The first molt comes after 9 days or so and the next molts can take
up to 2 weeks. Nymphs raised together should molt out simultaneously.
Nymphs will stop eating prior to molting and their abdomen will
be swollen to the max. At this point, it is critical to maintain
the humidity to prevent mismolts. During molting, it is very important
to not disturb the mantid. Any disturbances (misting, moving the
cage, etc) can ruin the molt and possibly doom the mantid.
Reproduction:
after 2 weeks since their last molt, introduce the female into the
male's cage and leave them alone. A mature male will react right
away after catching sight of the female. He will then court her
or jump on her back right away. After holding on (this could take
hours), the male will initiate copulation by bending his abdomen
down to connect with her's. Once the male is done, remove the him
or the female to prevent any unintended cannibalism.
Ootheca:
mated females will lay their oothecae from days to weeks after mating.
The oothecae are very small and may contain up to 20 eggs. Females
will continue to lay one ootheca every week or so. Keep these incubated
at 30-35C (86-95F) with a very high humidity (85-90%) by misting
the eggcases well everyday. After 4-5 weeks, the nymphs will hatch
out and the raising process will begin.
Additional
notes: I received my first eggcase from a contact of mine
and thought it was too small to hatch, but lo and behold, 16 nymphs
came out of it. But I raised them in a container with soil substrate
and 13 nymphs perished before I switched to the paper towel method.
The nymphs eat very well and can tackle prey that seems too large
for them.
Unfortunately, I discovered that all 3 remaining nymphs are males.
They are now L5 nymphs, but I have more hatchlings from more oothecae.
The recent hatchlings were raised on paper towel and the only deaths
occurred when I was away for a weekend. Hopefully this second batch
will have females and if I can delay the growth rate from the first
3 males, I may be able to breed them...fingers crossed!
Bad news folks, all my surviving hatchlings turned out to me males...and
"surviving" means only about 2-4 nymphs. Needless to say,
rearing this species from hatchling stage is quite difficult. I
think the biggest challenge was getting the ant-sized nymphs to
eat. I *might* take them up again later, but for now, they're too
much to handle and not much to show for my effort.
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