It's Mantis Time!

Like "yeah sure you can keep an adult mantis in a deli cup its whole life! I do it all the time!"

As the mantis grows, you scale the size of the cup up, going from dipping cup to big gulp. And...yes, some mantises stay small enough that you can actually keep them in a deli cup their entire lives, and they will have plenty of room. Ghost mantises, for instance. You can still decorate the cup and everything, the larger cups are about the same dimensions as the small terrarium you'd get anyway (4" x 4" around, just a few inches shorter). Remember, to avoid the mantis hurting themselves falling, you want the enclosure to be about three times the mantis's height. A ghost mantis is under 2" tall, the big cups are about 6"! (Also, the mantis's feet stick to plastic better than the glass in my experience.)

Also, for mantises, I don't think the enclosure is as important as it is for most inverts you'd keep--because I think you should regularly be letting them out. No amount of lovely fake flowers and greenery you put in there is going to change the fact that they're open air animals, and they want a breeze. (In fact, a breeze can be the difference between them eating and not eating, because they might not make a move on prey if they don't think the wind is blowing to cover their movements!)

It's not like you need to keep them entertained, either. Mantises are ambush predators. Once they hit a certain age, you just stick them on a plant and they'll stay there, in one place, for hours. Sometimes they'll wander, but rarely farther than the ceiling immediately above them. Keep them spaced out on their own plants, and you can let multiple out at a time without any trouble.

'CAUSE ON TUESDAY I'M HAVIN A POTLUCK 👏

AND I CAN'T HAVE PEOPLE COMING TO MY POTLUCK 👏

ASKING WHY THE HELL THERE'S TWO HUNDRED BUGS AGAINST THE WALL! 👏

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE QUESTIONS? 🤯

"Hey uh.... Why you have so many bugs?" 😐

HOW EMBARASSING! 😱

BUY MY BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGS🦋🪲🪳🦗🐜🦂🪰🐞🕷

See, I had Bo, a shield mantis (Rhombodera megaera), and I know for a fact that she never mated. So, when she made an ooth (egg sac), I assumed it was nonviable and put it in a little jar with rice to desiccate and preserve it.

Recently, though, I checked up on it...

Looking closely, you can see the raptorial claws and the long prothorax, plus the little flat flipped-up abdomen. There's nothing that could be but a baby praying mantis :|

So, then I thought about the other ooths I have. My ghost mantises (two females, Phantasma and Goria) laid tons of ooths all over their sticks, and again, never mated. And sure enough, when I look at one of them now...

See, this was a stick I kept out in the open. And when baby mantises come out of the ooth, they're initially these little larval things called pronymphs that they immediately molt from. On top of that, this is exactly the color and texture the mother had.

This looks like a pronymph shed. So, somewhere in my room, for a little while, there was probably a baby ghost mantis wandering around.

Monkey grasshoppers, family Eumastacidae

Photographed in Tatama National Park, Colombia

DO NOT FEED YOUR MANTISES RAW/COOKED MEAT, FRUIT, VEGGIES OR OTHER NON-FOOD OBJECTS.

They are obligate insectivores, and feeding them wrong food items can lead to health problems.

JUST BECAUSE A T. SINENSIS HAS BEEN RECORDED EATING A HUMMINGBIRD, DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN FEED YOUR MANTIS CHICKEN.

They will eat anything that you touch to their mandible, you included.

Please feed your pet praying mantises LIVE INSECTS, such as Roaches, Flies, Moths and Grasshoppers.

I personally avoid crickets as feeders as they have been linked to mysterious deaths and have been known to cause bacterial/viral infections.

Wild caught prey poses a risk of parasites, so please use captive bred, clean feeders.

This has been an invert keeper PSA.

:O that me!

This time she really, really wanted to just climb up high lol. Makes sense because she spends like 90% of her time upside down.

Ma'am, please, the door is not for climbing.

(look at her antennae moving!)

Oh my goodness I can't bring you anywhere Daffodil!! They have printed paper menus you don't have to climb up close to look!!!

I gave her a juicy cricket for her time! Everyone say thank you Daffodil!

first is the tiny Pseudophyllodromia laticeps, whose name means ‘broad-headed’ but really most of its head are huge eyes! unlike the rest of these cockroaches, which are nocturnal, these flit around in daylight like houseflies and are just as quick to take flight when approached.

I’m not fully sure what these next two are, perhaps blatellids.

Allacta is another pseudophyllodromiid and a very charming one, with delicate white markings on a shiny black background.

epilamprines are a lovely group of blaberid cockroaches that are diverse in the area; these three were Rhabdoblatta of three different species. the last one there was probably the prettiest roach I saw on the trip; sadly it was found dead on the path.

Pseudophorapsis nebulosa is a big epilamprine that tucks away its appendages and resembles a dead leaf during the day.

I’m not sure what these next two were, possibly more blaberids?

a male Pycnoscelus indicus was a nice sight—while very common, I’m only used to seeing female Pycnoscelus surinamensis, which descends directly from that species! several lineages of P. indicus independently developed the ability to clone themselves instead of mating; these female-only strains are together known as P. surinamensis.

the roach on the right is Ergaula pilosa, a cute burrowing cockroach (Corydiidae).

these two nonnative species need no introduction: Periplaneta australasiae and Periplaneta americana (Blattidae), two species that are big “pest” roaches worldwide. these two were just chilling in the forest, however.