Some good Mantis shrimp available

[Gonodactylus]

I don't normally plug suppliers, but a collector who I know recently caught a couple of gorgeous stomatopods and has them listed on Ebay. THis guy knows his animals, hand catches everything, and is really reliable.

One is an Odontodactylus havanensis with great color. This is my personal favorite animal to keep in a 15 gal aquarium. They are highly interactive and incredible builders. This animal should go in a tank with at least one flat piece of coral rubble, a sand coral rubble mix, and small marble sized pieces of rubble and shell to build a burrow.

The second is an Orange P. ciliata - unusual for Florida.

The shipping is reasonable ($25).

Roy

 

[turnabod]

those look great. i wish i had a spare tank! i would love to have that orange one.

 

[helipilot]

Darn, I have a couple of weeks to go on the cycle of my 2nd Mantis tank. I would have loved O. havanensis.

 

[archer8681]

You say he (the Odontodactylus havanensis) would be good in a 15gal, would it also be ok in a 12gal aquapod?

My tank is all ready to go. I made a LR structure with a nice deep cave on top of the Carib Sea Indo-Pacific Black LS - Grain Size 0.2 - 2.0 mm


Would the O havanensis be happy in this? If so, I'll bid on it.

Thanks Dr Roy

 

[mattyice]

bidding is over 20 already i tried to get it but its too pricey for me at this time

 

[Gonodactylus]

O. havanesis need to be able to construct a burrow. They do this by digging under a rock and then using pebbles to wall up the burrow. If you can add some gravel, shell and small pieces of rubble, it should do fine.

Roy

 

[mattyice]

Dr. Roy i was just wondering how you group each mantis into their family, is it their behavior? their habits?

i noticed that pretty much the O. Havanesis (how you described it) is almost exactly like the behavior of a O. Scyllarus, and it looks like a mini peacock also, does this have to do with the family they are placed in?

 

[Gonodactylus]

We group animals by how closely they are related. This is determined by similarity as well as history. It used to be done based mostly on morphology, but now we can used molecular data as well. Closely related species usually share many traits including behaviors although we have to always be aware of possible convergences. There are 8 species of Odontodactylus. All excavate burrows, live in fairly moderate to deep habitats, they all have an inflated dactyl heel, but they differ to varying degrees with respect to color, size, and distribution. There are no other genera within the family Odontodactylidae. In the superfamily Gonodactyloidea, we find several other families that differ considerably including the Gonodactylidae, the Protosquillidae, the Pseudosquillidae, the Hemisquillidae, the Alainosquillidae, and the Takuidae. These are obviously some very different beasts. The closest realative to the Odontodactylidae are the Pseudosquillidae and while they may appear different, they have similar eyes, are spearers that burrow, and share several elements of their courtship behavior.

I have spent the past couple of years with a few colleagues building a website called Understanding Evolution. It was funded by NSF (your tax dollars) to provide tools for teaching evolution. One module that we put together is on "evolutionary trees". It might help.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/phylogenetics_01

If you look around the site, you will even find that we have done a few things on stomatopods and this spring I am going to put up my Powerpoint lecture on Stomatopods and Evolution.

Roy

 

[Ms. K]

Wow, Dr. Roy! Thanks for that website! I teach life science, and it'll be a great resource for me when teaching evolution.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Thanks. That is why we did it. The original project was to produce teaching tools for K-12, but after we got that up, we discovered that it was being used in many other ways. The HHMI foundation provided funding to add the library, profiles and monthly features. The site is now doing over a million page requests a month. I can't help but stick in a stomatopod story line here and there.

Roy

 

[mattyice]

well the O. Havanensis sold for $61

 

[archer8681]

Yup!

I should have him in a few days. I'll post picks soon after.