My own praying mantis!....? Edit: Now with (large) pictures!

[kage no neko]

So we've been seeing lots of random praying mantises around and been playing with them. Finally cleaned out my 5 gallon fish tank and now I guess I have my own pet mantis. For now anyway.

xd I have no clue what to do with it. It's pretty neat and likes to climb on me. Right now it's in the tank with two branches of the bush it was on. I guess later I'll catch it some crickets or other bugs. We're probably going to petsmart tomorrow anyway, since the snakes need pinkies and the birds need more food. So might get some little crickets while there too.

I haven't read anything at all on watering them. Do they just get their fluids from their prey?

I know someone else in here does praying mantises, and I thought it was super neat. I just can't remember who....



 

[Upirium]

Offer a small dish of water and mist the cage. Though I, personally, have never owned a mantis I do know that another insect creature I had refused to drink from a bowl, and only drank the water droplets off the side of the cage. I offered a small dish of water though just in case.  

[kage no neko]

And thanks to our compost bin in the back, and the weird attraction of them to the parsley flowers, easily catchable flies! Especially at night, they just sit there. Even when you shine the light on them. So... first meal for my new pet mantis!  

[Kipluck]

KRISM!!! We need you!

And I do mean WE. I just received an egg case in the mail. I used to hatch them all the time as a kid, but I don't remember doing anything special to do so. Do they need a moist environment to hatch?

They are just little Chinese Mantises, nothing fancy like the Orchid mantis I covet someday. But I am excited.  

[Krissim Klaw]

@ Kage no neko- Such a beauty, looks to be a sub adult Chinese mantis so the next shedding it should get a lovely pair of wings and reach adulthood.

As far as water, there are some who feel a properly fed mantis will get plenty of moisture from its prey, but I've always found the Chinese mantises to be rather greedy drinkers. They will not travel down to drink out of a lid and chances are the mantis won't notice it there unless by chance it steps in it. The easiest method to offer water is to mist some water with a spray bottle around the mantis. It will sense the water with its antennae and feet and then if thirsty bend to drink. If you are really paranoid about offering water you can also do what I do and make sure to mist its upper half so a few droplets cling on its claws. If thirsty they will lick the droplets off when cleaning their claws. If not, they will give you a disgruntled look as they flick their claws to shake the water off. xd

The misting of the cage also is good to keep up the humidity to make for an easy shedding. You can also add something to the cage that will hold in moisture. Since I like to keep things simple I often use a paper towel or two to line the bottom. Not only does it hold in moisture when sprayed, but it makes clean up a breeze since the poop and left over prey parts will fall on it and you simply have to crunch it up and toss it before adding a new one.



@ Kipluck- It never hurts to add a little humidity and spray the cage with the ootheca every couple of days or so. It will help for when it is time for the little ones to slip out. I like to use distilled water since it doesn't leave residue when it dries. I have found Chinese mantises to be pretty easy hatchers and tend to do fine hatching out at room temperature with no real special care.  

[kage no neko]

Yeah, from what we understand it's still pretty young (especially since it's small compared to the other ones, who have wings) and boyfriend's googling tells us that it's a boy. Doesn't really matter to me either way, it's super cute.

Any idea how much to feed it? Yesterday was 3.5 flies. I say .5 since one of the flies he caught was really small. Today we're going to petsmart and might get some little crickets. We've found a few crickets around the yard, but they're all HUGE.

Right now I have fluffy snake bedding in the bottom of the tank. Just enough to cover the bottom, and possibly make a soft landing spot. I wasn't sure if paper towels or newspaper or what would be best, so I just went with what was easy, lol.