Mantis not eating...

SLKs reef

SLKs reef

New member
Hi,
It looks to be that I have a Gonodactylaceus glabrous and it will not eat anything I offer it. It has it burrow in a piece of LR and he/she will get rubble and close off all the enterances and I have tried shrimp, fish, and even put a hitch hiker crab in its burrow and it just clubbed it and it throws everything food related out of its hole. Would it be in the process of molting and refusing to eat? He/she is alwasy inside the burrow but will peek its head out or come out about 1/2 its body. Anyone know why it has this wierd behavior?
Thanks
 
Heres some Pictures

Heres some Pictures

Does it look like I have a correct id?

mini-crabid%20033.jpg


mini-crabid%20039.jpg


mini-crabid%20040.jpg


mini-crabid%20044.jpg
 
I don't think it is G. glabrous. What color are the meral spots?

The weird behavior sounds pretty normal to me. It will probably molt in a few days - or it will start eating. Don't force food on it. He/she will eat when its ready.

Roy
 
It looks like his/her meral spots are a teal color. Since he/she does not come out all the way from its burrow I haven't been about to get any good sights of its meral spots or its behind area. I saw that the G. glabous meral spots were orange but that was a female so I dont know if the males have different colors.
Any other possible id's?
 
Well then I dont think it would be a G. glabrous then since its meral spots are not orange. Any other ideas?


edit: I was cleaning his aquarium and he came out of his rock and attacked the feeding stick and when his clubs were unfolded at the end they were a hot pink. They were to small circles at the end so would those be the merals or are the merals up further on the clubs?
 
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Lysiosquillid comes to mind when you mentioned hot pink..(more like a hot orange, but close enough) im not sure about the color on their meral spots though.

how close to the true color are your images? his body looks maroon to me?
 
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these would be meral spots

threat.jpg


look on the "claws"/appendages, each side you will see a dark spot (purple) with white around it.
 
I know these are not the best but you can tell that she has some eggs. she is holding them and the ball is about the size of a dime or a little smaller. i had to snap these quick cause I didnt want to get her to P/O'd. And she didnt come out much.Will the eggs hatch but most likely die off? and about how long will she be carrying them? and will she always be carrying the eggs? what if she drops them in her hole? will she just pick them back up?

mini-eggmantis%20002.jpg



mini-eggmantis%20003.jpg


And the pic i have been trying to get...
Could help in ID.. you can see the pink

mini-mantis.jpg
 
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How long ago did you get her? Do you know where exactly she came from (i.e. where did the pet store supplier get it from)? If I remember correctly there are records of Dr. Roy's that speak of fertilized eggs being produced by a female mantis shrimp 3 months after insemination. Otherwise they just every so often produce unfertilized eggs and will more than likely end up eating them.
 
I don't know much, aside from what I pick up here, but I can tell you this: that is one sweet looking Mantis you got there.

You take care of her!

JJ.
 
The eggs are formed into a ball by mixing cement with the eggs as they are laid. While females carry the egg mass in the mouthparts, they can and frequently do put them down. Egg masses that are lost out the cavity entrance are often retrieved if they don't drift away in the current.

It appears that females can store viable sperm for a few months. I have had females lay fertile eggs after at least 4 months. They cannot, however, maintain sperm across a molt. When the female molts, she sheds the sperm storage organ along with the rest of the cuticle covering the genitalia.

Gonodactylid eggs take three weeks to hatch. If they are fertile, after about 10 days you will start to see eyespots develop. When the eggs hatch, the larvae will remain with the female for another week, molting three times. After the thrid molt, they will become photo-positive and will swim out the entrance entering the plankton. Without food, they will then starve to death in about two days. (Feeding the larvae is an almost impossible task that has only been accomplished a few times.)

Roy
 
Let's say for the sake of argument that one had a lot of spare time and resuorces, and wanted to give a go at feeding these larvae in an attempt to "raise" them.

What would be required? What would you feed them? How would you feed them? For how long would you need to feed them before they could then feed themselves?

For such a hardy creature it seems odd that they shold be so "frail" or incapable of caring for themselves at such a young age.

A baby cockroch would live through a Nuclear holocaust but these little munchkins can't live when spoon fed in captibity?

Where does the difficulty lie? I would have imagined that in the wild life would be a bit more uncertain for such the youngsters? Why so rough in a controlled environment.

Very curious.

JJ.
 
There is a big difference between swimming around in open water in a very stable marine environment and trying to survive in a small quantity of water contained in a tank or cup. There are many possible reasons why it is so difficult to rear stomatopod larvae.l First and foremost is diet. It the ocean, there is a high concentration with great variety. We have no idea what they eat, but possibilities are huge. In an aquarium, the best you can probably do is provide brine shrimp nauplii, rotifers, etc. with perhaps a bit of nutrient. Furthermore, to get a high concentration of food, you risk fouling the water, so the water will probably have to be changed daily - and changing the water produces mechanical damage as does running into the walls. Then there is the problem of cannibalism. Put 100 stomatopod larvae in a container and in a few days you will have one.. Add to this infection and disease, temperature fluctuation, pH changes, etc.

Gonodactylids stay in the plankton at least a month and other species up to six months or longer. THat is a long time to try to maintain an animal. The only stomatopods I have reared from egg to postlarvae were two Gondactulus chiragra. I started out with over 500. I put 100 of these in individual cups maintained in a constant temperature room.. They were fed and water changed daily. We provided them with rotifers and brine shrimp larvae soaked in Selcon. After a month, I had two that settled.

A few other biologists have had slightly better luck using specially designed recirculating vessels that confine the larvae and food to the center of the chamber keeping them away from the walls and providing better, more stable water parameters.

On the other hand, think of the success that these animals have in the plankton. The average O. scyllarus female that lives to reproduce will probably lay more than 100,000 eggs. On average, two survive to reproduce.

Roy
 
The photos and description provided really are not complete enough to allow me to identify this animal. From the color and source of the live rock, I would guess, and this is only a guess, Neogonodactylus curacaoensis. This is a subtidal, colorful species that is pretty much a live coral and coralline algae specialist. It occurs throughout the Caribbean and can reach a maximum size of around 60 mm.

Roy
 
I saw your picture of a Neogonodactylus curacaoensis and it does look like it but her dactyls are not that blue. And it can get 15"? what about in captivity. She has ate all the barnicles around the rock but that was before she laid the eggs.
 
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