Adult Colouration

[MJI]

Hi all, hope i can get an answer to this thread before the morning here (UK), as I'm about to do a 300 mile round trip to look at some mantis shrimps.

I asked this on another thread, but hope this may get me some ideas sooner.

Looking to buy a Peacock, but the LFS can't positively ID them. He posted a pic of what they look like and they sure look like em to me, but I wondered at what size they would show "normal" adult colouration?

They are about 3 - 4 inches in length - has anyone else got a Peacock this size that shows adult colours?

I've took note of some tips from the Lurkers website on how to try and ID O.S. but any help is appreciated.

TIA

 

[jjrock]

My peacock is about 4 to 4.5 inches and he's go the full rigamarole of colors. I have seen pictures of much smaller OS that have the colors too.

You'd probably get your best reply from Gonodactylus, but from what information I've gathered from this and others sites I'd say that by the time it's 4 inches it should have the coloration ... at least the "peacock" tail ...

Hope this helps.

If Gonodactylus is out there, he can probably give us the "scoop".

JJ.

 

[MJI]

I went down and bought a 3.5/4 inch mantis that looked a lot like OS to me.

Here's a few (bad) pics to see if it helps anyone make an ID, terrible digital camera, so will try and get some more later when he's settled.

He has white merals, with a black spot at the base of them.

PS: already devoured one cerith snail within 10 minutes of putting him into the tank!

 

[mantisshrimp]

You have scored yourself a nice Gonodactylus chiragra.I had one that was exactly 4" before.It's the strongest smasher for it's size.

 

[MJI]

Dash!! And I thought it could have been a Peacock Really does have lovely red and purple swimmerettes...

Can anyone give me some info on these guys then, i recall a lot of talk about it being a strong smasher - worrying!! Acrylic tank are very expensive here and hard to come by. First thing will order a new laminated glass tank!

Care, ideal surroundings, diet and importantly, max size etc would be a great help.

 

[MJI]

Just some more info:

I'ver had a look on this site and others for pics of G Chiragra. Are the colours of the animals always the same or can they be variant? Reason i ask is that it doesn't really look like any of the pics i've seen.

Here's a written discription as an aid to the bad pics:

About 4 inch (10 cm) in length, olive green/brown colour, red/purple swimmerettes, red edging on the tail "feathers", small white motals on the head area, white merals with a dark blob at the base, deep red legs at mouth, red antennae.

HTH.

 

[MJI]

Here's another very bad pic (sorry) showing meral spread.

The white speckles i mentioned goa little way back on the head and come forward even onto the antennae.

TIA again.

 

[kalim]

might be a g.smithii as well, based on the dark (Purple?) blobs surrounded by white as meral spot, but your pics are pretty blurred...definitely not a peacock though.

 

[MJI]

This isn't G Smithii. I've kept Smithii before. I think they have different colour merals and red spots on the telson - this one doesn't.

Hopefully Dr Roy may take a look at this and give his two penneth.

 

[mantisshrimp]

I'm telling you guys it's a chiragra!

 

[kalim]

hmmmm.....my bad...didn't read your post....have you tried comparing the specimen to pics of neogonodactylus wennerae - a stomatopod from florida and thereabouts? it also has the white meral spot like you mentioned....the doc should be able to nail it from your description...

 

[Gonodactylus]

It is a G. chiragra, probably male. This species can occur in different colors ranging from both males and females being a light cream color to dark chocolat brown. The typical color of Indonesian specimens where most of these come from is dark olive brown males, lighter olive females. It is extremely powerfu for its size specializing on armorned snails. They are generally found in cavities in beach rock or shale, often to almost mid-tide line. This makes it one of the most intertidal of all stomatopods - along with Haptosquilla glyptocercus. They are tough, can take heat and bad water and are ideal for an aquarium.

I wouldn't worry about glass breakage if you have at least a heavy 10 or 15 gallon glass tank. I have lost photographic tanks to them, but they were made out of ordinary window glass.

 

[MJI]

Well, I think he's great, and very colourful too. I've had him 2 days now and he's already wiped out my cleaning crew and he's now building at the end of his pvc pipe "hide".

This must be a large specimin then, according to other posts, and there were 3 more exactly the same size in the LFS if not a little bigger!

Thanks for the info guys (Sorry to have questioned you mantisshrimp ). Anyone with any stories or experiences with Chiragra, I would love to hear them - pics would be great too.

 

[kalim]

they're one of the toughest mantis shrimp i've ever had....tough in terms of just surviving, and tough in terms of their smashes...this is the species i had that broke a clear plastic container where i was temporarily storing it...it got agitated because i was moving the container around, gave an extremely strong whack at the container, and broke it...of course, the water run out and i had to drop it quickly into another makeshift container ;-)

not as colorful as some of the smaller ones (and definitely not like peacocks), but pretty ok anyways...

 

[MJI]

Thanks Kalim, anymore guys with a Chiragra?