yet another mantis...id help please :)

[medellia]

i know, i know, i have a mantis problem...

picked this little (1 inch!) shrimp up from the LFS today. the guy told me they ordered a peacock, and this is what came in. go figure.
i am thinking she is another wennerae, but any opinions on ID are appreciated. She has white merals.

also, while examining her with a magnifying glass, i noticed a weird teardrop shaped glob (for lack of a better word) on her underside, between the middle pair of pereiopods, above the gonopores. it is kind of blurry, but visible in the pic of her underside. it is light colored, and does not differ much from her body in color or texture...any ideas??

well, here are a couple pics...

 

[Pea-brain]

lol. The famous "peacock" mantis. Hang in there. Eventually they have to fish out 1 O. scyllarus (Maybe after 100 mantises) I'd have to say that is probably N. wennerae. I went through all Gonodactylids on roy's list and that is the only green one with white meral spot, excluding N. bredini of course. I have no idea about the "glob" but not too long ago I remember reading about a parisitic stomatopod snail. That is the only thing that comes to mind

 

[medellia]

cool, i was thinking it was probably a wennerae.
i have a peacock mantis on order with just about every LFS in town at this point, but since mantids are so scarce around here, i just can't resist buying every one that i come across. i can see myself a year from now with about 100 little tanks, each with a mantis...lol...

hmm, where did you read about the parasitic snail? that is interesting...i wonder if that is what it is. i will have to look into that.

 

[justinl]

the parasitic snail thing was somewhere on RC in here (mantis forum). there was a pic too i think.

yeah i agree, im thinkin wennerae too.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Guys. Look at the picture carefully, particularly the telson. How many carinae do you see. There are five mid-dorsal carinae. This is diagnostic of the genus Gonodactylaceus. There are also two pairs of dark spots on the telson and sixth abdominal segment formin a "square" - also typical of Gonodactylaceus. I can't see the meral spot, but it will be either light yellow green (G. falcatus) or orange (G. glabrous).

That is indeed a parasitic snail setting between the last pair of walking legs. That the position usually occupied by the female. The male snail usually sits between the first pair of walking legs. The male is much smaller and can be hard to see. I don't see any egg cases on the pleopods yet. At some point the female snail will leave her resting spot and move back to cover the gills with large egg cases - then return to her spot. Sometimes the males are lost due to the stress of shipping.

Roy

 

[Pea-brain]

if you haven't read that post yet, those snails are parasitic. They will not let the smomatopod molt. I think it was fatal for the mantis in that thread. Dr. Roy- wow. It would be pretty cool if you were to put all this info on identifying in its own thread, which would probly be stickied. Stuff like how to identify the characteristics of each genus on roy's list. Like all Raoulserenea have a pair of eyespots. or what makes a Neogonodactylus a Neogonodactylus instead of just a Gonodactylus? If you wanted to do that I'm sure that a bunch of people would be really grateful, and maybe we could ID some correctly every once in a while

 

[Gonodactylus]

Most keys are so technical and require looking at morphology that is hard to see except under a scope using a dead animal. There are some genera that have obvious traits like the 5 carinae of Gonodactylaceus, etc. but even in these cases, you still have to know that you have a Gonodactylidae. When I retire, I plan to write a popular book on stomatopods, but until then there are just too many stomatopod to chase (and students to teach).

Roy