Update and new mantis behaviour observed

ninjafish

ninjafish

New member
Hello all,
Even though my main priority in this hobby is now caring for Ike, my g. smithii, Ii haven't been posting much here in the mantis forum. Sorry about that. This should bring everone up to speed:

Mantis feeding video: www.truenorthreef.com/mantis.wmv
Latest tank video: www.truenorthreef.com/newcube.wmv
Tank thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707234&perpage=&pagenumber=1

Anyways, I ust observed a mantis hunting tactic and wanted to know if anyone else has seen this.

Ike hadn't been fed for a few days and was getting hungry so yesterday I picked up 5 small hermit crabs and dropped them into the tank. Ike grabbed one right away and pulled it into his cave but after only a couple hits, he was already back out grabbing the next one. Before I knew it, all but one (one got away) were gone. I looked inside his cave and saw that all four hermit crabs were placed side by side upside down so that their openings were facing up instead of down. Ike was hanging motionless from the ceiling and staring right inside the shell openings. It looked like he was just waiting for one of the hermit crabs to come out and try and right itself. I watched this for about a minute and Ike was perfectly still the whole time. I couldn't stick around because I had to get home but I am looking forward to what I find when I get back on Monday. If there are empty intact shells than I'll know that Ike managed to outwait the hermits. If there are empty smashed shells I'll know that he just said -screw it - and opened 'em up.

Cheers,

- Chad
 
How odd. I just dumped 10 blue legs into Sammy's tank, and he did the same thing. I wonder if this is just a Smithii tactic.
 
ive also noticed it with master blaster. he never oout waits them though... he just smashes the shells open after 3 minutes.
 
Weird! I;ve never seen it before either and I have fed Ike a lot of hermits...

Your experience got me thinking about a possible explaination for this behavior. 10 blue legs is a lot to feed and 5 is the most that I have ever put in the tank at one time...
Perhaps this is a "food storage" mechanism that the mantis has developed. When I feed him a couple crabs, he busts them open and eats them. Maybe when you feed them more crabs than they can eat at once, they imobilize them on their backs to keep them until it is time to eat again. Maybe in the ocean, if they let a meal get away just because it wasn't hungry at the time, they wouldn't be able to guarantee when its next meal would come along...
What do you think? Is Dr. Roy out there?

- Chad
 
Ya! That is crazy if that's what's going on. An arleady intelligent and fearsome predator just went up a couple more notches...
(and boy am I glad that I'm not a hermit crab)

- Chad
 
G. smithii is basically a shallow water species that is often found on reef flats exposed at low tide. They typically come out of their cavities and collect prey (hermits and snails) when the water is very shallow and large fish predators can't get to them. They will store several hermits in the cavity and then work on them when the tide and fish return.

As for waiting for the hermits to try to wright themselves before attacking, I have not seen that behavior.

Roy
 
Dr. Roy,
Thanks for the info. I think I probably observed the storeing behavior and mistakenly thought that the mantis was waiting to make a suprise attack.
Thanks again!

- Chad
 
Caldwell,
Haha it is pretty cool. You ever see behavior like that when you feed a bunch of snails or hermits at once?

wenright
Thanks!

- Chad
 
actually, i dont have a mantis shrimp yet....i am waiting for some of my lfs to call me when they get one on some LR. my avatar is of a G. caldwelli from roys list and i found it funnythat i can call it my mantis shrimp, even though i did not discover it
 
I've noticed with my mantis a similar behaviour. If I feed a piece of silverside or scallop my mantis will place this under her lair. Then she'll drop down from above (out of her burrow) and hang motionless above the peice of food. Meanwhile I have isopods that swim around (very fast) and land on the piece of food. She'll wait for a perfect oportunity and snatch the isopods off the peice of silverside or scallop. Then after while she'll eat the peice of food, lol. Smart I tell ya!
 
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