How Do I Convince Mantis To Eat?

[opal]

I'm having no luck getting my mantis to eat! The woman who gave her to me
said by now she should definitely be gorging herself. She has not eaten for one week since arriving at my house. She is my second mantis to not eat. The first one went almost 2 wks w/out food, then molted as an adult, fell, and died. She also never ate while at my house, but ate very well for her original breeder.
We have a ceramic heat lamp on the mantis house. Temp. is typically 70 f.
She lives in a glass terranium, but never moves from the screen mesh top. In her terranium we have paper towels on floor, a shallow dish w/ pebbles and we mist water 2x day. There are a few spruce branches and a sea sponge. We have about 8 big crickets and 2 small crickets in there. They are thriving. I've started leaving a lamp on for her to get more light. I tried hand feeding her. Nothing is working. Any ideas what we might be doing wrong?? My daughter is desperate to keep this insect alive, but I can't figure
out what we are doing wrong for these previously very healthy mantises. They are African praying mantises. Also, she has developed a small white spot on one wing. Any ideas??

 

[Ecilious]

Stress could be a factor. Don't leave the light on all the time as it's un-natural. If the enclosure is in a noisey spot move it too a quite corner. Quite importantly do not leave uneaten crickets in the tank as they will harass and could kill a freshly moulted 'pet'. The 'spot' on your mantids back could be just this- crickets nibling at her.

In the way of food I'd say try offering a blue bottle or house flies and see how she reacts, at the least they wont be able to harm your mantid..

 

[Jesse607]

Is she definitely a she? Is she very fat? Some individual mantids pay no attention to food items unless the food items move around directly in front of the mantid, so if this is the case make sure the crickets are able to climb to the top near the mantid. I would also reccommend trying some flies or moths, maybe your mantid does not like crickets for whatever reason.

 

[BLS Blondi]

my 2 cents

I have found through much observation, that many invertibrates that are found constantly on the steel mesh top are trying to escape. There is probably something she is unhappy with...it's too hot, too dry, etc. I have noticed this in my spider room. I have a space heater that warms the room that kicks on and off automatically by it's thermostat. I noticed that if the thermostat was above 77F, most of my T's (including all 20 of my T. blondi) are either in the screen lid, or trying to climb up the glass. Once I dropped it to 74F, they all stopped. I have always seen this behavior as them trying to get out becuase they are unhappy. The only exception to this is my P. cancerides females, which is a species that tend to wander all the time.

 

[Farom]

Mantids are arboreal though, not terrestrial, so its perfectly normal for it to be hanging out on the top.

Can you post a picture of your mantis and its enclosure? That may help determine the problem.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[Mithrandir]

First of all it's indeed very normal for a Sphodromantis to hang in the top of the enclosure and they don't move that often also. I keep mine a little above room temp, that's like 22-25°C. As these is an African species you don't have to spray it twice a day!!! I mist mine two times a week and that's really ok. Just when they're about to molt I increase the humidity.
I only leave crickets in the enclosure of adult mantids, that aren't gonna molt anymore, because else you have a big chance that the crickets eat the molting mantid. Are you sure the mantid isn't gonna molt, because then it wouldn't eat anyway... In that case remove all the cricks.
I suggest to do this:
1) Spray less
2) remove the cricks
3) Keep you're enclosure as simple as possible: one or two branches and paper towel, that's it.
4) Leave your mantid alone for a day or so and then place one to two cricks in the enclosure. Make sure that the mantid sees them.

Sphodromantis eat very well normally, I never had any problem...

 

[TarantuChimp]

Same here I used to just throw a cricket in and she would see it and whamo, it would be stalked and then eaten. I used to have one thick branch in the middle and a light layer of substrate on the bottom with some decor at the back like fake leaves, this was a 10 gallon tank and she used to love it.

 

[Scolopeon]

I'm having no luck getting my mantis to eat! The woman who gave her to me
said by now she should definitely be gorging herself. She has not eaten for one week since arriving at my house. She is my second mantis to not eat. The first one went almost 2 wks w/out food, then molted as an adult, fell, and died. She also never ate while at my house, but ate very well for her original breeder.
We have a ceramic heat lamp on the mantis house. Temp. is typically 70 f.
She lives in a glass terranium, but never moves from the screen mesh top. In her terranium we have paper towels on floor, a shallow dish w/ pebbles and we mist water 2x day. There are a few spruce branches and a sea sponge. We have about 8 big crickets and 2 small crickets in there. They are thriving. I've started leaving a lamp on for her to get more light. I tried hand feeding her. Nothing is working. Any ideas what we might be doing wrong?? My daughter is desperate to keep this insect alive, but I can't figure
out what we are doing wrong for these previously very healthy mantises. They are African praying mantises. Also, she has developed a small white spot on one wing. Any ideas??

They usually molt on top of their cage hanging upside down if you wanted to know..

Ive had about 10 mantids in my time 2 of them were lost to crickets eating them when they molted :S and 2 died an unknown death.

If it wont eat when you get it its definatly molting.. when I first kept them I got worried too.
It could also be a heat induced factor but id stick to the molting one.

I once had one develop a black dot on its eye and when it molted it got bigger, it covered the mantids whole eye when it finally molted, the mantid died 2 months after that.

 

[Mithrandir]

the black spot in the eye is a sign of necrosis and occurs normally only in older animals. I've had that also with some of my mantids (sometimes even with no so old ones).

The spot on the body (actually the wings) is normal for Sphodromantis btw...

 

[Parahybana3590]

I had that same problem with my new African Mantis but it ended up shedding. Anyway good luck to you and I hope it's ok.

 

[NeyNey]

You could try hand feeding your mantis...Some mantids don't hunt. They're "waiters"...Hold a cricket by its leg in a pair of forceps or tweezers and dangle it in front of the mantis...If interested, he should grab it right away...

 

[Mithrandir]

that's true... but Sphodromantis do hunt, they're by far the most aggressive killers that I've kept.

 

[Parahybana3590]

You could try hand feeding your mantis...Some mantids don't hunt. They're "waiters"...Hold a cricket by its leg in a pair of forceps or tweezers and dangle it in front of the mantis...If interested, he should grab it right away...

I agree, I fed mine last night and I ended up having to take out the shrubbery and damp paper towel so I could flip the container my mantis was in ,'cuz it was watching that cricket to no end, and it cought it right away.