My new hobby (image heavy)

[Myke]

hypsocorypha better pictures. still a bit out of focus but you can tell what it looks like now.

 

[Yumi]

Those are beautiful!

I thought they could cut you with their mini-scythes?

 

[pyromaniac123]

How pissed off would you be if you accidently stood on one of these?

 

[FAST6191]

An impressive collection- most people I met that collected them were more into the truly exotic snakes, spiders, stick insects and rare butterflies but several of those did have a handful of the more common mantis types and they were great little things.

 

[Myke]

Yumi, Their scythes are too small to cut you. Some can prick but the big species only. Also their mouths are too small to bite us

Pyromaniac123 I would be royally upset at myself that's for sure

Fast6191 all these mantids are exotic I do have a couple of native caught ones. But I mainly deal with exotics. The gracillis I just posted isn't even in culture in the us yet. I got it from europe.

 

[Myke]

Idolomantis Diabolica munchin on a moth

 

[Veho]

It looks so cool. Amazing

 

[Cyan]

your collection is amazing.
You have a lot of species I didn't know (not that I know them, just know the most common ones).
Some of them are very small, like that hypsocorypha.

it's his adult size, or it's just a new born?

 

[Myke]

your collection is amazing.
You have a lot of species I didn't know (not that I know them, just know the most common ones).
Some of them are very small, like that hypsocorypha.

it's his adult size, or it's just a new born?

he's a nymph. He's gonna be bigger.

 

[Rydian]

What do you usually feed them?

Do they seem to have preferences based on individuals, or just species?

 

[Myke]

all species have different preferences. My house is a zoo. on top of my 14 reptiles 7 amphibians 2 fish tanks and all the mantises I breed my own food for them. I have 4 different species of roach colonies going, mealworms, fruit flies, house flies, firebrats and blue bottle fly cultures. I used to raise crickets, but roaches are far better and far less work. Most mantises will readily eat flying food. Some won't even look at stuff like roaches and crickets, even turn their noses at them, and a few species turn their nose at flying stuff and prefer low dwelling scurrying creatures.. When they are young they are typically fed fruit flies as they get bigger they move on to houseflies, and then blue bottle flies. They can hunt them all by themselves. If you want them to eat crickets and roaches, some species will hunt them, but others will ignore them. For these species you have to hand feed them by waving the bug in front of them with tweezers. Then there's the metallyticus. they are low to the ground and scurry around. They ignore anything that flies, they are pretty much built to hunt roaches on the barks of trees. Ironically enough though the biggest mantis species in the world can only eat fruit flies because their raptoral arms are soooo tiny.

as for flying prey it doesn't stop there. you can feed them wild caught moths, spiders, wasps, bees. any bug really as long as it's not poisonous. if it stings or bites I would remove the stinger or teeth first.

as far as individuals having certain preferences within their species, I believe it exists. I have two adult ghost mantises one won't even look at a roach or cricket. she only likes flies, while the other readily jumps at roaches.

 

[Icealote]

Wow those look awesome.

Some reason it reminded me of tempura cooked food. Great... hungry.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

This is actually really cool, and that's coming from a guy that mercilessly kills insects on sight.

Some times it's awe inspiring to see how beautiful these creatures can be

 

[Myke]

I woke up to this today!!!!!
this is a ghost mantis egg case that hatched overnight. It will keep hatching for the next week or so. I have 3 more eggs of these species waiting to hatch.
so this is what a newly hatched mantis looks like =)

 

[Bitbyte]

Awesome collection man!

 

[gamefan5]

Impressive. You have piqued my interest.
Says the one who has Entomophobia. XD
Then again, I love studying animals and their behavior, even if it goes against my phobia. I like researching animal species, it's interesting. I see you have a thing for mantises, and I'm sure you have other species of insects as well.
Myke Will you be collecting other species like beetles?

 

[FAST6191]

I woke up to this today!!!!!
this is a ghost mantis egg case that hatched overnight. It will keep hatching for the next week or so. I have 3 more eggs of these species waiting to hatch.
so this is what a newly hatched mantis looks like =)
[picture]

Were I not the owner of a pair of testicles that would probably elicit a squee.

 

[Master Mo]

Wow, those look like little Aliens

 

[Myke]

gamefan5, I don't really collect other insects although my interest is starting to peak with Beetles. And sadly as weird as this sounds, Roaches. I'm amazed at how many roaches are out there that look so different and behave so differently. They even have social communication behaviors. The only reason I say roaches is because I have a few colonies of different species that I use to feed my reptiles and mantises. Seeing how they interact in their bin made me think of getting more different species of them. If I don't like them I can always feed them all the way to my reptiles

 

[gamefan5]

gamefan5, I don't really collect other insects although my interest is starting to peak with Beetles. And sadly as weird as this sounds, Roaches. I'm amazed at how many roaches are out there that look so different and behave so differently. They even have social communication behaviors. The only reason I say roaches is because I have a few colonies of different species that I use to feed my reptiles and mantises. Seeing how they interact in their bin made me think of getting more different species of them. If I don't like them I can always feed them all the way to my reptiles

LOL that part made me laugh.
Actually I don't find it weird at all about roaches. Very few of them are considered pests. They can be very interesting. I like the fact that they can adapt to a lot of environments and they are hardy too.