An ootheca in
a foam mass produced by a praying mantis to house it's eggs.
Ootheca can vary immensely; some can be a few millimetres
long, whilst some can stretch up to around 8cm long. There
are some species, which will lay large, round foamy ootheca,
whereas some will lay short, think, tough ootheca. The amount
of nymphs and ootheca hatches also varies; some can hatch
up to 10, whereas some can hatch up to 400. Some mantids
will only lay 1 or 2 ootheca, whereas some can lay up to
20 in their lives.
There
are several different methods of hatching praying mantis
ootheca, however I find by far the best method the “string”
method.
This
is very easy, and this was the method I used to hatch my
very first ootheca. First of all, you need to see which
type of ootheca you are incubating. It is much easier with
larger, foamier ootheca such as Sphodromantis, Hierodula
or Idolomantis. However, species such as Creobroter, Phylocrania
and Iris Oratoria can be slightly more difficult, as the
ootheca are much longer, thinner, and tougher.
Anyway,
here it goes. First of all thread a piece of cotton through
a needle, (the smaller, sharper the needle the better.)
Find a suitable piece of foam at the very top of the ootheca
in which you can thread your cotton through, without damaging
any eggs. This is very easy with the large ootheca, as the
foam is very thick. However, with the thinner ootheca, you
might have to sacrifice one or two eggs if you can get through
the foam at the top. Alternatively, if the ootheca has been
laid on a twig, then you can thread the cotton through the
twig.
Once
the threading is done, you now need to hang it up for incubation.
Depending on the species, you need to incubate them at different
temperatures; you can see the care sheets for more information
on this. The best container to hang the ootheca in is a
small cup, or cricket tub. I always use the cricket tub
just because it is slightly ventilated, and I have a lot
of them! But either will do fine. By incubating the ootheca
in a small container, when the ootheca hatches, the tub
can be easily transferred, and put in a larger container/enclosure.
Here
are some other incubation methods:
Bluetack
- The ootheca can be stuck onto a surface with bluetack
for incubation. However, this will often fall down as the
tack looses is "tackiness" when wet.
Superglue
- The ootheca can be stuck onto a surface with superglue.
This can be another good method, but make sure to use a
small amount so the ootheca doesn't absorb any glue, thus
killing off the eggs.
Pin
- Instead of threading cotton, you can pin up your
ootheca. Although, this might be hard with small ootheca,
and you face a chance of killing more eggs.
When
hanging/threading the ootheca, please be aware of one factor.
The front of the ootheca can be easily defined by a line
running down the middle of it. When attaching the ootheca
to a surface (if it has not already been laid on a surface),
make sure that you do not fix the front of the ootheca.
Otherwise, nymphs could face a struggle coming out of the
ootheca.
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