Mantis Action

[Jacob D]

Tonight I got a good scare when Pickles, my 2 1/2" mantis, came at me. I was lazy and instead of slicing off some frozen mysis for her I dipped the cube in the tank... a couple seconds later her mantis head pops up out of the rocks and next thing I know she is flying like a torpedo and on the cube which I'm still holding onto.

So naturally I screamed like a girl and let go. Now the cube is floating around the tank with mantis frantically clinging on and going nuts. After it soaked some water up she sunk it and dragged the whole thing into her lair. I got some of the food back with long forceps while under attack from her smashers. Better the forceps than my fingers I guess. Well it added a little excitement to the evening just thought I'd share.

 

[Bugs825]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[SuperNerd]

hehehe

 

[dave3d]

Last night I made a mess when my 3" G. Terna smacked my finger while I was moving some rocks around. I pulled my hands out of the tank so fast that about 1/2 a gallon of water ended up all over the place including inside of the power strip which then began to sizzle. No damage to the finger just felt like getting popped with a rubber band. So after turning off the power strip I continued to arrange my rock work and got hit again. This time on the top of the thumb. Same then happened and a bunch of water went every where. At this point my girlfriend was getting upset at me b/c of the mess I was making hehe. I guess he was just given me some warning whacks so I lucked out and no real damage was done.

--David

 

[Jacob D]

Hahaa.. good stories. I have learned that just dipping my finger in the tank now causes Pickles to become very alert, and she has even lunged at me a couple times when I don't have food (not in an attacking way... er I hope). If I dip my finger in some mysis and dip it in the tank she flys out at it and starts swimming all around looking for the food.

So I've learned she can swim pretty good, and has more control than I would have guessed. She can not only zip from mid water into her burrows, but she can also shoot like a dart and catch food that is blowing around from the powerhead. She is very quick, I should have named her ninja. I'd compare it to me jumping up and snagging a bird mid-flight!

 

[onefin]

:eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:

 

[Jacob D]

Well Pickles off'd her tank mate Crabola, a large red-legged hermit. I didn't see it happen, but his turbo snail shell was flipped over and I saw the corpse at the entrance of her burrow. I suppose the crab could have perished and she just snagged it... but somehow I doubt it.

 

[Jacob D]

Some Pictures of Pickles

Some Pictures of Pickles

Checking out the scene

Cruising around

Mugshot