a shy peacock mantis

[calvinci]

hi, last week I purchase a peacock mantis from LFS. It's 5 inches long, house in a 1.5ft x 1ft x 1ft acrylic tank, with HOB filter, crush coral substrate and one LR. It builds it's burrow immediately after introduce into the tank. While it dig into the substrate, it hit the tank bottom several times, luckily no leak. I didn't install any lighting for it, does it require light?

The problem is that it hide in the burrow all the time, only see it's eye and antensil, however it did feed, I put in 6-7 living shrimp, the next day only 3 left. Then I chopstick one of it near it's burrow, quickly it grab the shrimp back to it's burrow..

Is it normal for it to hide all day, even at night..

 

[Gonodactylus]

Individuals vary with respect to how bold/shy they are. This also changes with the molt and reproductive cycle. I have animals that I have literally not seen come out of their burrows for two years. Others come running to the glass as soon as anyone enters the lab.

O.s. are primarily diurnal.

 

[calvinci]

thanks for the great info. BTW I feed it with live fresh shrimp and it like it. But today I chop a small piece of a tiger prawn, it seems not interested in it, first it grab it from my chopstick into it's burrow. few minutes later, I found the shrimp on the sand, so I drag it to it, it grab it again, but then immediately it bring it out of the burrow and dump on the sand again, this happen several times, it always throw it out of the burrow. What's up with it?

 

[Tballa]

where did you get the tank?

 

[calvinci]

Any of the LFS in Penang, Malaysia sell this tank. Now I know this mantis don't take food that's immediately taken out from freeze, I have to defrost it, then only it will take.

Do mantis eat mushroom? I put in one green stripe mushroom last nite, and it's gone this morning.

 

[Tballa]

Oh, I guess I probabley won't get to get one then!

 

[DensityMan]

Not likely that he ate it. May have been used in a construction project of his though...