Everyone's mantis is bigger than mine... /mantis-envy on
Alrighty, not sure if it's all smithii' or all juvenile smithii or maybe just Tim, but my experience with this mantis speices is that they are big-time sissies.
I use a feeding straw with mine that I drag frozen 'meaty' foods and alternate with various snails and hermits. I only feed him 2 or three times a week and make him hunt for any supplemental feedings (he may be a youngster, but nobody's feeding these guys in the wild everyday).
I have read in several articles (not available to me at this time) that in order to avoid problems with molting or deformed raptorial appendages that it is best to make sure he he has to 'crack' open some of his food. I try to make sure he has to work for most of his meals; though he does beg like a dog when the feeding straw comes into the tank.
He may be settling in and might live off reserves until he/she has its home just right before feeling safe enough to eat anything.
Last point, be wary of over-feeding. These guys will cache away food for snacking, but often times will just let it go to rot. I may be over-feeding Tim currently, in hopes of beefing him up some, but at least once a week he cleans out the pantry and expels all sorts of 'junk' out of his home (positions himself head-down into his home and turns on the swimming 'engines' while bracing himself on the walls - it's pretty cool).
