Parachuting Mantis

[Brisc0]

Woke up this morning to feed my new mantis and he wouldn't come out of the cave...

Yah, he was on the floor at my feet. Im so bummed. I had no idea it would try to crawl out and guess i'll fashion a top before I look into getting another =(

 

[Ms. K]

Sorry to hear that. I had a mandarin dragonette do the same thing on me once...blew my mind.

 

[Dirt4dinner]

within 5 minutes of putting my Peacock in it's new tank I was startled by my dogs freakin' out! I found the darn thing crawling across my living room floor. Seriously...FIVE MINUTES! There is now a plastic mesh top on there to keep his butt in the water! Sorry to hear you weren't so lucky.

 

[Brisc0]

I kept thinking I would wake up and find it on my chest looking me right in the face, but had no idea it was actually going to try.

 

[Gonodactylus]

There are only a few stomatopods that willingly leave the water. G. smithii often can be found a low tide crawling between tidepools.

More likely the animal propelled itself out of the water. Small Odontodactylids are probably the best jumpers. I've seen O. brevirostris clear at least 6 inches.

Roy

 

[psychodave]

I read this thread yesterday and found my peacock, Nibbles on my bedroom floor this morning...im heart broken...my Girlfriend and I cried when we saw him...Now im considering tearing down all of my tanks and getting out of it all together. Im so bummed out...

 

[Gonodactylus]

O. scyllarus, particularly nearing a molt will occasionally spook and swim up into the water column to escape. They can reach speeds approaching a meter per second. When you are living at 20 meters, that is no problem. When you are in 50 cm of water and hit the surface, you keep on going - sometimes right out of the tank. We keep some sort of lid or netting on all of our Odontodactylus tanks and lab assistants are instructed to be extra careful when working on containers and aquaria housing them. For a large O. scyllarus, a five foot drop onto a epoxy floor is often fatal.

Roy

 

[mattyice]

well i can see that for an animal that weighs over a pound, as for that i have seen Monte (my peacock) come to the surface but that is it, she was just swimming around, she is being moved to a deeper tank and i will put egg crate one top just to be sure

 

[psychodave]

Thank you for the info Doc. You cant imagine how bad I feel about loosing him, I was even going to get some egg crate today and fashion a lid for the tank. When I read the thread yesterday I figured id better put a lid on it because ive heard of 3 or 4 mantis fatalities from jumping out of their tanks over the last month... It figures, though...thats the kind of luck I have.

 

[Gordonious]

Sorry to hear psychodave. I hope you stick with the hobby. I know how heart breaking it can be, but I will bet if you leave the hobby you'll miss it. Take a trip to your local hardware store for some egg crate asap.

Jon