YAMID -- Yet Another Mantis ID

dantodd

dantodd

New member
OK, here are the pics. I've had him for a couple months now and this is his first day out after his second molt. He looked much like this when I got him and he was very greyish-brown looking after his first molt when he was stuck in a barebottom tank with big pieces of LR. I took the piece he made his den in and moved it to the small section of the tank and he now has a nice crushed coral bottom. I suspect this has something to do with why he came out so green again this time.

He is still quite reclusive. He does come out pretty quickly when there is food though. It is quite difficult to get a picture as he doesn't stay still for long....


mantis-face.jpg

mantis-meral.jpg

mantis-telson.jpg
 
When you look at the first pic, you can see a white meral spot with red streaks around the edg.
This is typical for Gonodactylellus viridis.
Nice color.
 
Thanks Timmy. Yeah, the merals are white with maroon/red streaks. I was so happy when I saw how bright he was this morning. He's been out a lot more today than he has in the past so hopefully he's liking his new home. He's also been digging burrows in the substrate so that's a good thing.

Danke.
 
Do you know where the animal came from? There are a couple of things about it that do not remind me of G. viridis.

Roy
 
No clue where he came from. I picked him up (saved him from the trigger tank I'm sure) at Aquarium Concepts. He was a hitchhiker in an order of live rock. They had him in a tupperware bowl with 2 other mantises and a couple hairy crabs.

I will be happy to try and get more/better pictures. Let me know what you are looking for. I hesitate to try and pull him and put him in a cup but I might try if you think it will help accurately ID him.

He's right around 2 inches.

I don't know if his behavior will help but when I first got him he was in a crushed coral sandbed and build a little burrow. Then he escaped his side of the tank and made it over to the bare bottom section where he carved a burrow in the LR. This is when he molted to a darker color. Once I moved him back to side of the tank with a sandbed he holed up in the rock within a couple days and molted to this color (which is pretty accurate on my monitor) and has since started burrowing back in the sandbed under the LR.
 
It is probably G. viridids, but the telson looks a bit different with suggestions that it could be Neogonodactylus, but I would need a much sharper close-up of the dorsal telson to be sure. Unfortunately, the critical character never photographs very well.

Roy
 
dorsal telson, I don't know which portion of the telson that is? The part in red or yellow? And what are you looking for.
telson-question.jpg
 
The yellow part and I'm looking at the presence or absence of an accessory longitudinal carina on the mesial margin of the Intermediate carina. All Neogonodactlus (all gonodactylids from the Americas) have this. Other gonodactylids do not.

Roy
 
i just got one like that but he has a less smooth color.
he is my first Mantis. and he is so cool. he watches me when i am on my computer
 
Mine has pretty much stopped coming out of his den. He does sit in the entrance and look out sometimes but almost never leaves anymore.
 
Well Roy, I got another picture of the telson today while I had him out of the tank. BTW: he is between 4 and 4.5cm

I also noticed that the markings on his white merals are more greyish than reddish, don't know if that makes a difference.

telson-new.jpg
 
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