Reproduction question

[cschweitzer]

How long can a female manits shrimp store sperm in her recepticles before it needs to be used or becomes no longer viable? I've read on different articles that say for some time, but gives no definite. Reason I ask is because I think after years of captivity that my mantis just had babies.

I know, I know, it is not likely and it is more likely that they are copepods, amphipods, or such. But they don't look anything like any other pod I have ever seen. They have a long slender body with long antennae(I believe that will turn into eye stalks). Also, if they are a pod, they look as big as full grown ones, but these look to be growing and they all huddle together in one area, where normal behavior that I have seen from pods is to be relative loners. There movement is short erratic bursts much like a mantis. They are still clear, so I can't tell by color. It just seems to me the only logical explanation the mantis is in a 10G tank with nothing but live rock and caulerpa and maybe a snail in the sand, no other animal that this could be the larval stage for.

I guess it all depends on how long the female can "store" sperm.

 

[cschweitzer]

bump

 

[Gonodactylus]

Sperm can be stored for several months. I think the longest I have recorded a female laying fertilized eggs without being with a male was 6 months. The important factor here is not how long, but the fact that sperm are lost when the animal molts. I have never seen a female lay fertilized eggs unless she mated after molting. So - if your stomatopod molted since capture and has not mated since, she did not hatch a clutch of eggs.

Roy

 

[cschweitzer]

She has not molted in the1-2 years I've had her. I'm pretty sure she has been fully grown for a while.I got her from someone else who found her in live rock.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Mantis shrimp never stop growing although they do slow down the frequency of the molt. I don't remember seeing one not molt for a year. My guess is that she molted and buried the molt skin.

Roy