I was walking the beach at low tide yesterday near the aquarium where I work. I saw something moving around on the beach about 2 foot from the waters edge. It was a mantis and he had made a hole in the sand and was jerking around trying to get back to the water. I scooped him up carefully into a water bottle and took him home. He's in a 5 gallon eclipse tank right now and doing well. I have a bit to learn about these guys so I'll be searching the old posts and seeing what info I can find. I've caught these guys in the past a few miles off shore in shrimp trawls, but didn't know they came that close to shore...think of all the tourists who don't know what these things are and try to pick them up, hee hee.
I caught a Mantis Shrimp!!!
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Gonodactylus
Premium Member
There are more than a dozen species of stomatopod recorded from North Carolina. Several occur in the low intertidal. How big and what color is it? I assume that it is a spearer since there is only one smasher this far north in the western Atlantic.
Roy
Roy
He's around 3.5" long and maybe .5" across at it's widest. He's long and skinny compared to some I've seen. He's a solid dark brown (almost black) in color. We have one of the same species at the aquarium...a tourist brought it in a sprite bottle the other week with no clue what it was. I will ask the animal husbandry curator if he knows what species it it. If I remember correctly, the ones we used to catch offshore were fatter and a green coloration (so probably a diff. sp.)
John
John
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
Now you have me really curious. The most common species this far north is Squilla empusa. This species is lighter in coloration - cream tinged with olive and yellow.
The most common intertidal species is Coronis scolopendra. There are many records from North Carolina - particularly Ft. Macon. THis species gets to 70 mm and digs verticle burrows on sand bars.. The dactyl of the raptorial appendage has 15-17 spines. Females are usually olive-brown and males gray. We think this species lives in monogamous pairs, but that has yet to be proven. It is fairly long and skinny. My guess is that this is what you have.
Neogonodactylus wennerae gets to this size and can be dark green to almost black, but I don't know what it would be doing on sand. They live in rubble. We are currently conducting a genetic study on N. wennerae from through out the Western Atlantic and have no material from as far north as this. (If you decide not to keep it, please let me know.)
Roy
The most common intertidal species is Coronis scolopendra. There are many records from North Carolina - particularly Ft. Macon. THis species gets to 70 mm and digs verticle burrows on sand bars.. The dactyl of the raptorial appendage has 15-17 spines. Females are usually olive-brown and males gray. We think this species lives in monogamous pairs, but that has yet to be proven. It is fairly long and skinny. My guess is that this is what you have.
Neogonodactylus wennerae gets to this size and can be dark green to almost black, but I don't know what it would be doing on sand. They live in rubble. We are currently conducting a genetic study on N. wennerae from through out the Western Atlantic and have no material from as far north as this. (If you decide not to keep it, please let me know.)
Roy
Here's the one link with pics. http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
I found a drawing of Coronis. The key part is the shape of the telson with its rather sawed off appearence. Ignore the position of the raptorial appendages. In drawings, they are often unfolded and placed in this position. Normally, they would be folded under the carapace.
Roy
Roy
