For Dr. Roy: Which mantis inhabit the Western American waters?

[Uriel]

Dr. Roy, I may be taking a much needed vacation in the near future, and doing some diving in/around either Acapulco or Puerta Vallarta.

Which mantis (If any) might i find in these waters?
Diving is my goal, although i will need a quick re-cert, as I am very rusty on scuba at this point.
I am actually basing my location on the diving, so any suggestions for a destination change (For seeing more mantis/variety of them, as well as other fauna) would be appreciated.


-Ron

 

[Uriel]

Oh, and...Ok, it was sinking off of page one, and I was hoping that Dr. Roy might answer (If he saw it, that is...)


-Ron

 

[Gonodactylus]

Ron,

There are well over 20 species from that area, but many are soft bottom squillids and lysiosquillids.

The most common shallow water gonodactylids that you might see in cavities are Neogonodactylus stanschi, N. zacae and N. festae. Last time I was in Puerta Vallarta, I collected N. stanschii from cavities in encrusting coralline algae on very low and subtidal walls. The other gonodactylids are more typically found found in rubble from the low intertidal to at least 100 feet.

There are also two Lysiosquilla, L. panamica lives in sand or muddy land. I occasionally see it in the low intertidal to just subtidal. Lysiosquilla desaussurei is found in similar habitat and get a bit larger - about 20 cm.

Acanthosquilla digueti is small (25 mm) and burrows on low intertidal sand flats.

There is one Pseduosquilla, P. adiastalta, that can be found among the base of branching corals.

Check out the shrimpers coming in at the dock. They often have several species of Squilla, Eurysquilla, etc.

Roy

 

[Uriel]

Hmm, I wonder what the rules on bringing back mantis are...
I suppose that it would be fairly easy to set up a temp tank (Or some buckets of seawater), just keep a watch on them for a day or two (Or try and get mantis from said shrimpers on the last day that I was there...) and bring them back? I should do some research on returning with live animals from mexico, I suppose...Any more advice/info would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for answering this post.

-Ron