Dirt & Bugs

Breeding mealworms aka Darkling Beetle larvae is both easy and inexpensive. Tiny ones may be used for small mantises (or other animals) as supplemental or backup feeder insects .

"Egg-bound" : when a mantis female either cannot or will not lay an ootheca and is long overdue. The female in the upper image is healthily pregnant. The female in the lower image is overdue by a month. Notice how you can see the abdominal tissue between the segments. This sort of stretching is normal when a mantis overeats, or has a large meal while pregnant, but in an egg-bound female these segments will be chronically stretched. It is important to not feed these females too much at once in order to not rupture their already-large abdomens. Female mantises can and will die from being egg-bound for too long.

While this condition can be caused by circumstances that cannot be easily resolved by their keeper (interior blockage, etc.), many times the female is simply not laying because she has not been exposed to conditions that properly stimulate laying behavior. The first steps to encourage laying behavior are typically to temporarily increase temperature and humidity, and ensure she is hydrated (using a dropper if necessary). If this has not produced laying or pre-laying (hanging upside-down, etc.) behavior within 24 hours, rearrange the female's enclosure by moving items, changing out the substrate for completely different substrate (potting soil or moss works well for this), and adding new sticks. Some females are picky about sticks being as flat and horizontal as possible, and craft popsicle-style sticks work well for this purpose. Furthermore, some females will be more encouraged to lay if more privacy is added. If 24 hours pass again with no change, try moving the female's enclosure to different areas of your domicile to give her different visual stimuli. Another strategy that has worked for several keepers is to pull up a clump of grass (including roots and attached soil) from outdoors and place it in the female's enclosure.

Male mantises have 8 abdominal segments (pictured: adult male Shield Mantis aka Rhombodera valida), while females have 6. This is usually the most reliable way to sex a non-adult mantis when they are young.

An ootheca is the name for this type of egg case produced by several types of insects, including mantises. The plural form is oothecae. In the mantis-keeping hobby, this word is usually shortened to ooth. The egg case size, shape, and texture varies among different species of mantises. It begins as a soft foam encasing the eggs but quickly hardens into a protective covering.

These are two of the Creobroter species aka Jeweled Flower Mantis. The smaller one was laid after a 1 month pregnancy and the larger one is from a 2 month pregnancy, likely containing double the number of mature eggs. A female will become pregnant and lay an egg case regardless of if the eggs have been fertilized or not, and she will lay several over the course of her adult life (~5 months). A single mating, if successful, is able to fertilize 2-3 pregnancies.

Oothecae can be laid horizontally or vertically, but always in such a way that the babies can use gravity to assist their hatching. The ones pictured here are being held upside-down for the purposes of taking the photo, which does not harm them.

Flower Mantis adult female "dancing."

Most mantises have a single "ear" deep in the center of their thorax (chest segment) which detects high-frequency/ultrasonic sounds, alerting them to nearby insectivorous bats.

Mantises are the only animals known to have just one ear👂

She likely cannot hear the music, as it is far below a high frequency.