Southern Cal. Mantis

nts9

New member
A good freind of mine just caught this 9" monster while fishing for halibut off of Pt. Dume in the Santa Monica Bay. They incidentally caught 10 of these guys and he decided to keep a large one to bring back to me in case I wanted to try raising it.
I plan on setting it free in the morning.
Put your middle finger and your thumb tips together and thats about the girth of this thing. WOW!
We're finding more and more of these bugs of late extending to the Channel Islands and maybe even further north.
I understand its a tropical critter thats quickly spreading north into our temperate climate.
Makes you wonder if they are either evolving, wether or not our ocean climates are changing somewhat or perhaps they were a part of a migratory movement thats more associated with the el nino.
Man, if you guys could only see this thing in person...
 
Too bad you guys are not local in california.
Free to a good home, local of course.
For now, it'll be dormed at Jims exotic Fish until I can decide wether it goes free of or if it is to be donated to Jim.
The things waay too big for shipping given the stress and all.
Not sure about the kids in that shop either, somebody could get hurt.
He's a smasher and the smashers look to be longer than your middle finger (unless your shaq)
Beautiful colors of magenta body, with blue, red and yellow for markings
 
The species shown is Hemisquilla ensigera. It is not very closely related to other mantis shrimp. It is common from Santa Barbara to Chile. They live in burrows in muddy sand at depths from 10 to over 50 meters and are occasionally caught on hook and line. These animals seem to recruit heavily during El Nino years and typically a year or two later you will see artilces in local papers from Southern California and monster shrimp mangling a fishman's hand, etc. These animals do not do particularly well in aquaria. They should be kept below 19C (perferably around 16C) and are happiest when in a burrow of piece of dark pvc. Currently we are working on sound communication in this species.
 
Back
Top