Mantis ID please

[ace1204]

sorry for poor quality i believe this was hitchhiker from some florida rock, got it at lfs, its a spearer.

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[Timmy]

It is a smasher. Neogonodactylus oerstedii.

 

[ace1204]

No its a spearer, you can barely see them in the first pics, little white spears on his raptoral appendages.

 

[Timmy]

Here is a pic from the raptoral appendages of a smasher.

Normally the dactyl is closed when the animal hits a crab or a snail, but they can move the dactyl to spear shrimps and other soft prey.

A spearer has teeth on the raptorial dactyl.

 

[justinl]

hey that is a great pic timmy! wonder if "offner" and "schliesser" are the english terms for those bits too? but yeah a smasher can spear by extending the dactyl the same way a spearer does. only difference is that the smasher has an enlarged heel on the dactyl which it prefers to use. also note that smashers can have teeth on their dactyls. less prominent than a spearer's but some like O. scyllarus have them.

 

[Timmy]

wonder if "offner" and "schliesser" are the english terms for those bits too?

The pic is for my german mantis homepage and i found only one pic with the correct muscle names. For the dactyl they call it simple opener and closer. This is in german "öffner" and "schliesser". I hope Roy can tell me the correct names for these two muscles.

 

[ace1204]

Wow well thanks i guess you learn something new everyday lol i was thinking it was a Pseudosquilla ciliata, what gives it away that it is a Neogonodactylus oerstedii

 

[gharner]

yeah it seems to be a smasher.....especially since it is living in a hole in the live rock. it looks to me to be a neogonodacylus wennerae. they are one of the most common hitch hikers from florida rock too. what color are the meral spots? (N. wennerae have white meral spots).

 

[justinl]

the merals look like a white rings with a purple centre to me. this would be indicative of N. oerstedii to me. it doesn't look like G. smithii to me. OP am I correct in my assessment of the merals?

 

[Photo_John]

I saw one just like this in a LFS it is a smasher

 

[gharner]

haha i didnt even see the purple center the first time i looked! yea N. orstedii gets my vote as well.