mantis ID

[surfnvb7]

just got this guy yesterday from a LFS.

owner was dipping a mushroom rock that came in on a new shipment, and said "something black darted" off of the rock. just my luck i walked in the door right after this happened.

its a 1", and i'm like 95% sure its gota be a Smithii! which is awesome, b/c i've been waiting to find a cool mantis for 2 years. this one is quite well manered, and not that shy.

other mantis shrimps i've had in the past were very shy, and very mean.

its mostly green, with some darker stripes across the back. there are also some white spots across the back. the "tail feathers" (uropods?) are a mix of blue/pink/yellow. and although he never gave me a good shot of the merel spot, it looks to be purple with either a white ring or light blue ring.

 

[justinl]

you can see a bit of the meral spot in the last pic i think. you can also clearly see the redish pink bumps on the telson. yeah, im going to go ahead and agree, G. smithii. congrats on the find.

 

[Hutton]

definetly a G. smithii. very nice mantis you have there

 

[surfnvb7]

well, got him set up in a small 7g minibow which was the residence of a previous mantis i have not seen in many months (viridis).

i haven't seen him in a couple days, but can hear him clicking away just about all times of the day.

i threw in some very small blue leg hermits, small nerite snails, and some feeder ghost shrimp in attempts to lure him out...with no avail.

is there a favorite treat to get these wild caught mantis more domestic in nature and come out?


the last mantis i had, i trained to come out for feeding time when i tapped on the glass...but he only would stick his eyes out of his burrow. would never actually leave it, even if something tasty was close by (ate frozen foods and ghost shrimp only)

 

[Kati]

He's probably just getting used to his new surroundings, give him a few days and I am sure he will prove to be wonderfully entertaining! They are some of my favorite mantis'. Congrats on your new buddy!

 

[G.SMITHII]

you probably wont see him for a couple days-weeks.

mine spent like 2 weeks smashing out his home. lil guy did so muck rock work it would literally cloud my tank up.

thats a good lookin lil guy too good work!

 

[yiliyang]

Hey surfnvb7:

I graduated from V-tech in 2000. Which LFS did you get the animal at? I don't even remember a saltwater fish store over there.

Yili

 

[surfnvb7]

i finished my undergrad in 2004.

ZooQuatic wasn't around then? ZQ is a regular pet store, was in blacksburg, but they moved to christiansburg recently.

there used to be a saltwater specialty store in roanoke (Somethings Fishy), but it went out of business around 2004.

recently this past fall, a new saltwater specialty store called Ultimate Aquariums opened up in Salem. it rocks! thats where i got the mantis, it was just a hitchiker on some mushrooms that came off when it was dipped for pests.