Baby mantises

[DreamScape]

I think i have some.

they have a pair of mantis-like claws and are very good swimmers.

i drew a picture of them:

 

[kalim]

pic

pic

good sketching! LOL
looks like a grasshopper to me....

looks sorta like this much smaller babe:
http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/pics/cheroske_larvae.htm

 

[Gonodactylus]

That looks right. They will probably all be dead in three or four days.

Roy

 

[word]

my lord of the pit could make short work of your baby mantis!

 

[kalim]

that is one scary pic - the lord of the pit, i mean.

 

[DreamScape]

my wayward angel could match your lord.



thanks for the conformation.

I just wish i knew wherre they came from. I never saw any of my mantis carrying eggs. and even more appeared today.

but it's great to know that they're baby mantis.
look alot like baby praying mantises too

 

[James0_85]

Gonodactylus you said. They will probably all be dead in three or four days, is it possible to keep baby mantis's alive? if so how would you do this?

 

[Gonodactylus]

If this was a gonodactylid with eggs, you would not she her. She would stay pretty much sealed up in her cavity for four weeks without feeding. The first three weeks the eggs would develop and hatch, the last week she would stay with the larvae as they went through three molts. By the last molt, they would have exhausted their supply of yolk, become photopositive, swim out the entrance, and enter the plankton.

It is highly unlikely that any would survive in a standard aquarium for more that three or four days. They don't have the right food and filtration systems will do them in.

Roy

 

[DreamScape]

update:

they're still going

they really seem to like the light.

do they hunt pods? i've seen some swooping into the sand bed. looked like they came out with something in their grip.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Yes, they are photo-positive at this stage. That is how they get out of the dark burrow and up into the plankton - they swim towards the light. We typically catch larval stomatopods by using bright lights and netting them when they swarm around the beam.

They are cannibalistic.

Roy