baby mantis

[giraffeboo]

Hello all

My name is Linda
I have had my mantis for about 3weeks now I was told it is a peacock mantis, but he is not green can anyone please tell me what colour is a baby peacock mantis.
He is about 90mm or 7 cm long how old would that make him?.
I called him Bam Bam
{after the Flinstones cartoon you know Bam BAM }

What colour is the female and what age should he be before I can get him a lady friend ?.
While I am here I would like to say that this site is The Best site I have found, I am finding every thing I need to know about my mantis and would like to Thank everyone.
Thank you ALL

From Australia

 

[Guygettnby]

welcome to the site. here is a we site that will show you pictures of all the mantis recorded to date.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/royslist/

 

[DylanE]

sadly if you put another mantis in with him, chances are one will kill the other. They do not like company.

 

[Gonodactylus]

O. scyllarus under 7 cm can be yellow to olive green. I've also seen some that are a light reddish brown. Adults (> 11 cm) are more typically olive for females and green for males, but even here there is some variation.

Juveniles typically have a dark spot on their sides, one per segment.

We don't have good growth data for O. scyllarus, but I would guess that your animal at 7 cm is 1-2 years old - but that is just a guess.

You cannot keep a male and female together for long periods, but you can put them together for an hour or so (supervised) to mate.

Roy

 

[justinl]

post a pic. peacock mantis, although it does refer to a single species (o. scyllarus), is used as a general term by sellers largely because they are too lazy to do a proper ID. it is reallllly annoying. does it have leopard spotting on the sides of the carapace?

for the record, Stomatopoda is a diverse taxon with over 500 species. royslist (above link) is just the handful that find their way into the aquarium trade.