What is the average life span of a mantis?

If you get it as an adult (over 4 inches) they will live for about 5 years. If you get one as a juv. they will probally die before they get to an adult because of all the molts they have went through. I remember this from a post by Gonodactylus.
 
There are over 500 species of stomatopods in over 100 genera and 5 super families. That may not mean much to you, but to a biologist it means that they are very diverse. Some spearers like the squillids clearly live only two or three years. Large Lysiosquillina at least 20, and most of the others that we know about (probably only 10%) are in between. I have tiny species less than an inch long that were captured as adults and have been in my lab for four years. I have G. chiragra that I caught as larvae in Indonesia in 1998 and they are now only 25 mm long - the species can reach 10 cm, so who knows how long they can live.

There is no published estimate of how long O. scyllarus can live. I have kept adults for 4 years and my guess - and it is only a guess, based on laboratory records, is that they live a maximum of 8-10 years and most in the 5-6 range.

Ro
 
It seems most people that but a mantis on this board have the O. scyllarus. This is popular probally because they are colorful. I've heard alot of times how this species has problembs molting and dies early as a cause. I'm setting up a 10 gallon around x-mass. What are some hardy, small mantis i could get for it? I want a smasher that i could feed live silverslides. I've been thinking about ordering from fcamdog, he says he has philippine mantis, ciliata mantis any others fcamdog? Can you tell me about them?(smasher, spearer, what you feed, how big, hardy?) Can i have some info on those species?
 
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Somewhere on this board I posted some of this information this weekend. If you want the toughest smasher around, go for Gonodactylus chiragra from the Pacific or Neogonodactylus bredini, N. wennerae, or N. oerstedii from the Caribbean. The best spearer I have found is Pseudosquilla ciliata.

Roy
 
Gonodactylus chiragra

Gonodactylus chiragra

I recently bought a Gonodactylus chiragra about three weeks ago. And he is quite hardy. He's very active and has a very strong punch, as Roy Caldwell mentioned once before...but I had to move him to a new tank with saltwater I JUST made and he had no problems going in there and going about his business...He's already eaten a couple snails, a mussell, and yanked a hermit from his shell. He's got a nasty temper too. If you bother him at all, he'll attack you. He rarely retreats. Although I just got a couple Gonodactylus s., the Gonodactylus chiragra is still my favorite. He's already about 4 inches when I got him, but hopefully he'll live long.
 
In case you are interested in what G. chiragra looks like, the video clip that Death Shrimp 99 is using is a large male G. chiragra striking a crab. Sorry it is so dark, buy I shot this sequence at 1000 frames a second and it takes a lot of light to freeze movements at that speed.

Roy
 
You took that? Do you have any better tapes of it? If you press stop on your internet explorer you can pause it. It seens like i mant a Gonodactylus chiragra. They seen like a good mantis. How big do they get? Does anyone have any color pics? fcamdog did you ever catch or see one of those?
 
I shot this for Canadian Public Broadcasting a few years ago. I was using a fairly old high-speed video system, so the resolution is not that great. The clip has found its way around and is pretty jerky, but then the entire strike takes ony a few milliseconds.

Gonodactylus chiragra reaches a size of 10 cm max, and most are 7-8 cm. They are very slow growing and live for years in the lab. They are sexually color dimorphic, females are typically light olive or green and tan mottled and the males are a more solid dark green to almost chocolat in color. Both sexes have orange or red uropods, etc.

The only file that I have loaded up right now is attached. However, this female has unusual color and is from Australia. Most G. c. come from Indonesia or Thailand. They do not occur in Hawaii.

Roy
 
JaredCooper -- my little mantis is at least 5 years old now -- he's little and greenish and from Florida, and I think, a smasher
 
mantisagogo-
That's pretty impressive! I decided to hook up my 6 gallon to my main 120 system so hopefully this will work out for the best
 
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