chinese mantids

edie

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my ootheca just hatched! there are already about 50, and i don't think its over yet.
i wasn't expecting them to hatch so soon so i didn't have all my supplies, and all the pet stores are closed since its sunday. i just put them in fruit jars that i used to keep widows in. i'm going to go buy them a big cage and their fruit flies tomorrow.





 

Stylopidae

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Sweet!

You should get between 250 and 300, most likely bordering on the high side from that sack :)
 

edie

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Sweet!

You should get between 250 and 300, most likely bordering on the high side from that sack :)
yeah, just the small side of it hatched today
they're all adorable, i can't wait for them to start growing
 

Stylopidae

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The small side was fertile? :eek:

That's interesting...I've always been told that the small cases were sterile.

So you'll probably get more than a few from that case. That case was one of the larger ones I had.
 

edie

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The small side was fertile? :eek:

That's interesting...I've always been told that the small cases were sterile.

So you'll probably get more than a few from that case. That case was one of the larger ones I had.
yeah, i'll try to take a picture of it. i'm pretty sure thats the side they came out of.. thats where i saw them hang from.
 

LoganVivisected

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wouldnt the babies eat eachother or are they communal for a certain amount of time? sorry if its a silly question but the only insects i keep are giant water bugs. when you get their set up finished i would love to see a picture or two of it!
 

edie

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you can see the stuff hanging off of the small side, thats where they came out of, the big side is clean
 

edie

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wouldnt the babies eat eachother or are they communal for a certain amount of time? sorry if its a silly question but the only insects i keep are giant water bugs. when you get their set up finished i would love to see a picture or two of it!
yeah they will eat eachother unless you seperate them all after they hatch. i don't mind if i loose some, its a big case and i wouldn't know what to do with all of them if they all survived.
i'll take pictures tomorrow if i get it finished and post them on this thread :)
 

TNeal

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I too have chinese mantid nymphs. And like yours they hatched out sooner than I anticipated. I have upwards of 300 nymphs. Luckily I had friut flys available.

They will not start to be canabalistic until their 2nd or third moult. I plan to release the majority of mine when the weather warms up, in a couple of weeks or so.

I fed mine todat, they are two days old. Only a couple of them ate. The rest ran away from the fruit flys. LOL They don't really start eating for 3 days or so after hatching.

They are so darned cute.

Tom
 

edie

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I too have chinese mantid nymphs. And like yours they hatched out sooner than I anticipated. I have upwards of 300 nymphs. Luckily I had friut flys available.

They will not start to be canabalistic until their 2nd or third moult. I plan to release the majority of mine when the weather warms up, in a couple of weeks or so.

I fed mine todat, they are two days old. Only a couple of them ate. The rest ran away from the fruit flys. LOL They don't really start eating for 3 days or so after hatching.

They are so darned cute.

Tom
they are adorable, i fed mine today and got them all seperated. about half of them are eating and the rest don't seem to get it but they're all doing well
 

AviculariaLover

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Aww they're adorable! Whenever I've kept mantid ooths from females I've mated myself in the summer, or finding ones already laid in the wild, they have never hatched. Well, once I had a success, but I was away for the weekend and when I came back they were mostly dead (and I was also about 10 years old... so I just let them outside).

How do you keep the ooths overwinter to ensure they'll hatch?
 

TNeal

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They need a hibernation period to hatch. I kept my chinese oothecae in the fridge for 3-4 months. After I removed them they hatched in about 3 weeks at room temp.

Tom
 

Stylopidae

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I kept my female in a medium KK (not the smaller medium, the larger medium). To mate, I simply kept putting in males until one wasn't eaten and then I fed her as much as she'd eat. Telling if the mating took is pretty simple. You'll know.

I kept all the males free range and locked them in my bedroom. They all set up seperate territories and they divided my room into even fourths. This actually worked really well. This was back when I was still using crickets so they just lived on all the escapees. I think I'll use the same method this year, only I'll handfeed them.

She layed the oothecae on the side of the cage, despite the fact I tried to coax her to lay on any of the sticks I had in the cage.

After the female died, I removed the oothecae with a razor blade. I slipped the razor between the ootheca and the plastic and took care not to puncture the case. The case basically pried off.

After the removal, I refrigerated the cases. This was mid January or so. I still have some in the fridge. I'm going to see how long I can get them to last in there. I'm going to try to hatch them one by one. I currently have one warming up.
 

padkison

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I wonder if that is 2 separate ooths laid right up against each other by potentially different mothers?



you can see the stuff hanging off of the small side, thats where they came out of, the big side is clean
 

Stylopidae

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I wonder if that is 2 separate ooths laid right up against each other by potentially different mothers?
The same mother laid both the ootheca. If I remember right, I think she laid them both within 24 hours of each other.

When she was gravid, the mother was one of the biggest chinese mantids I've ever seen. I think she laid at least four oothecae that were viable. Five, if the other side hatches (which it should).
 

edie

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they'll all doing well, i'll let you know if that other side hatches, nothings happened with it so far
 

padkison

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Coincidentally, my daughter's chinese ooth started hatching today.
 
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