DEFINATLY NOT something you see everyday!!!

[Matt_K]

This past fall I found a HUGE mantid on my back porch and decided to bring it in for a while, well, to my suprise it decided to leave behind two egg sacs. I decided to cut them off the lid of the cage gently and place them in a small fish food bottle with two little holes in the top and put em in my bar fridge for a little while.. 2 Months later I took em out and put in my Hovabator that is ALWAYS on and let them sit in there for a couple more months at a steady temp of 75º. I just opened up the incubator to check on some crestie eggs that are in there, instead, I found baby mantids in the bottle.. Here's the contents..

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/473100_2401.jpg

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/473100_2399.jpg

And one of the little buggers.. I can't get over how tiny they are.. It's insane..

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/473100_2400.jpg

I don't know about you guys, but I still remember being like 6-7 years old and searching for hours on end with friends of mine catching these things by the hundreds and just watching them, well, i feel like im 7 again. LOL..

-Matt

[JAdkins2451]

I no what you mean about spending hours searching for them wiyh my friends.. thats a neat little thing..Are you just goin to let them go..Congrats

[Matt_K]

To be honest, I haven't the slightest clue as to what im going to do with them..

Anyone have some hungry Chameleons??? :D

-Matt

[Stockwell]

That's very cool Matt!! congrats on hatching those

[chappy]

I'm not a fan of bugs, but thats pretty kewl! How many are in a sack approx?

[samurai]

When i was younger i remember putting one of those egg sacks in a jar, i forgot about it and went to the cottage. When i got back it seemed like the whole jar was crawling with the little guys, they were already starting to eat each other too.

[BoidKeeper]

I didn't even know we had thoes in Canada. Are the praying matis(sp)? Is that the same thing? You have got to try and raise a few for sure. I wonder what you could feed them? I wonder if they would take canned cat food?
Congrats,
Trevor

[JAdkins2451]

I know when me and my friends were kids.. We would catch and keep them for a week or so and we used to hand feed them Grasshoppers or crickets that we caught..

[samurai]

i think they need moving prey, fruitflys for starters maybe???

[Matt_K]

Trevor, they're the same and there's MILLIONS here in Canada man..

I've tossed a couple fruit flies in there right now, no action as of yet. they're soo tiny that even a pinhead would be too much.. They might even be smaller than a pin head, it's insane..

-Matt

[samurai]

If you leave them together they will definetly turn cannibalistic if there together long enough. Maybe they have an internal food source for the first week or so just a guess?!!

[BoidKeeper]

Yup I just found this,
"Raising Young
Some adult female mantids will lay egg cases in the container. Continue to care for the female as described. She may lay additional egg cases. After a period of time (varies with species and season) the immature mantids will emerge from the egg case. They will eat each other if additional prey is not provided. Small fruit flies are ideal for small mantids. You can also remove the mantids and set them up in other containers.

Other Concerns
Precautions
Mantids eat often and finding food for lots of immature mantids may get to be exhausting if you do not have a culture of fruit flies available. Do not release mantids outside unless you are sure they are a species that lives in your area."
Came from a site off of google.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Matt_K]

That's a good question.. And one that Hopefully someone with more experice can answer for us..

I've got a couple pill bottles here that i've tossed some really small sticks into and some fruit flies. They're seperated now and i'll continue to do so as they hatch.. So far, it's only the two..

-Matt

[samurai]

Im sure there will be more, when i had them it seemd like there was 50 and i only had 1 egg sack, then again i was only 8 or 9 so 50 might have been 15

[Jeff_Favelle]

That's totally cool! Its awesome to find the things that fascinated us when we were young. Reminds us all why we do all this!!! :D

[DragnDrop]

My egg cases are still in cool storage. I usually leave them there until April. Any 'leftovers' that grow too big to use as feeders can then be released in my garden for bug control and attracting birds. The cases are really easy to collect around here, it's my one winter outing during a January thaw.
You could raise them on pinheads, fruit flies and any other tiny bugs until they're big enough to use as feeders. Newly hatched ones went over well with 1 month old chams. I've also used small mantis as food for crested and gargoyle geckos. Some of the bigger dart frogs ate them as they emerged from the egg cases, but not many Dendrobates touched them (probably too tough for their tender tongues to handle).

[Derrick]

thats sweet.

[Stockwell]

They can eat big prey. I've seen them eating monarchs like a cob of corn. I'd toss some pin head crickets in and see if they grab them with those front claws

[Matt_K]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
That's totally cool! Its awesome to find the things that fascinated us when we were young. Reminds us all why we do all this!!! :D

That's exactly why I grabbed up the female man. It was these types of things that got me into this hobby when I was a child.. I have the scar to prove it! :D

Hilde, I was thinking about trying some with the cresties, and now I think I definatly will..

Roy, i'll have to see if I can get my hands on some pinheads this weekend, as for now, they'll have to be happy with their fruit flies.

-Matt

[reptile boi]

I remember in grade 5 we hatched an egg sack in class and my teacher gave them away to students who got permission from their parents that said that they were allowed to keep em. Well, i got permission and brought 3 <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=home&v=56">home</a>. I kept them in separate jars with sticks and well, our <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=house&v=56">house</a> was made out of stucco and we (my parents and i) lived near a river and in the summer wed have hundreds of mayflies that would stick on the sides of the house and id used to grab a few everyday or so and rip off their wings and drop them in front of the mantids and theyd take them readily. Matt, i am pretty sure that your mantids will do fine on 2 week old pinheads, all u need to do is to rip off the jumping legs and toss em in with the mantids :), mine would also take things a little bigger than they were!
good luck!


Thanks,
Ben

[HeatherRose]

Those are SOOOOOOOO awesome Matt :D You've had 'em for a while, eh? I have hungry chams ... but I'll eat one for 5$... ;)

Wicked pictures :D

[Thrush]

Matt, fabulous, I can't believe it's that small from the pictures. I have a ravenous chameleon, he's a regular pig :)

Hilde, That's really cool, where'd you find the egg sacs? I never thought of mantis' as a food source. I thought they were somewhat rare in Canada, but I guess not...

Thrush

[Matt_K]

In the fall around my place there's litterally millions of them. Everywhere you look you see a couple of them..

I've always found egg sacs on wooden telephone polls.. It's worth a shot..

-Matt

[DragnDrop]

I find them in grassy fields and edge of wheat fields of my favourite stomping grounds. The eggs are laid in fall, but I don't collect them until January or even February. By then the tall grass has been flattened for the most part and it's easier to spot the cases. During a warm spell I'll go out and explore. The ones I find are attached to the stems near ground level. They're hard to spot at first, but once you've seen a few you get to recognize them easily.
Every year I release some mantids in my garden, thinking it will save me a trip into the wild to collect cases next year, but it never works. I've yet to find one egg case here at home.

[reptile boi]

"In the fall around my place there's litterally millions of them. Everywhere you look you see a couple of them..

I've always found egg sacs on wooden telephone polls.."


Matt your one lucky mouse, id love to live in a place where i can find mantids on my property, but instead i have to go to this grass feild behind my school and spend hours and hours under the sun looking for one. I have also never found egg cases on telephone poles, id always find them somewhere on the ground in a grassy feild, even then, all the ones i find are always dried up :(



Thanks,
Ben

[Matt_K]

LOL, I live in a grassy field.. My house backs on to a farmers property, I cant see the house behind me, just the field.. It's awesome. He doesn't mind me walking his property either, as long as the horses aren't out.

[DragnDrop]

If you're collecting near a school, maybe the other students found most of them before you got there. :)

I have tried collecting them in the fall, but it's too much work considering how easy it is in winter. Right now the snow has flattend most of the grass and tall weedy plants, makes it easier to find a 'rounded blob' against the flattened weedy things even if they are the same general colour. There's fewer mosquitos, wasps and flies out at this time of year ;)

[dudsky]

wow awesome... do those things grow big? are u going to the expo in missisagua next weekend?? i want one lol

[Kyle Barker]

tres cool! when i was a kid i fed them the aphids i found on thistles. they would be black with them, so id jsut pick a flower and put it in tehre and that would feed em for a few days.

[Linds]

That's way too cool, Matt :cool: I've seen those things around in the summer, but never knew what came out of them. Maybe next year I will pick some up and give it a try myself!

[Tyler99]

You guys use them as feeders?!!!!!!!

LOL In the Usa if you kill JUST ONE you are sent to jail!!!!LOL

[TheLionsShare]

DOn't release them, they are non native...

[LHP]

While this species of mantid is originally from Asia, it has been established in North America for so long that it no longer matters (1950's?). Here in Virginia, the native variety seems to coexist with the chinese mantid just fine. Also, garden catalogs routinely sell chinese mantid egg cases to help combat garden pests.

Also, it is an urban myth that it is illegal to kill mantids... check out this link: http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/mantis2.htm

Lindsey