Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it okay to feed praying mantis' to chameleons? I found a site that sells praying mantis eggs and it looks like I won't be able to get grasshoppers very easy. I'm worried about their "claws" harming him. Or have I seen too many Discovery bug shows? lol

Like many grasshoppers they do have spiny fore-legs for catching and holding their prey (the shows are all true! yikes!). Personally, I couldn't see feeding them to my herps as I would be more likely to have them as a pet - LOL! Have you ever seen the orchid mantis?? However, I would think that in their early nymph days they would be OK.
orchid mantis

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & Jetta
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta

Hey Lele,
I can totally relate to the 'bugs as pets' thing. I like insects too. I just don't come across too many people that do.
In fact when somebody posted about something about feeding a katydid to their cham I cringed. They're so pretty, what a shame. I suppose a dead katydid is better than a hungry cham though.

Meemee

I keep thinking about a thread that occurred on the monitor forum about a year ago and a picture at a petshop.
The thread was from someone who was feeding off his excess bearded dragon babies to his monitor (he included a picture, which IMHO was in bad taste). The picture was of a larger chameleon eating a smaller chameleon (to illustrate why chameleons of different sizes should not be kept together).
I guess it's all how you look at things. One person's pet is another person's feeder item.
But you are right. Mantids are very beautiful animals and if I was to get a few, I would be much more inclined to keep them as pets rather than feeders.
BTW, anyone have a link to where you can buy Mantis egg cases?
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi.tripod.com/sdchamkeepers/
gomezvi@yahoo.com

That's awful!!!

As for mantids...I have a few links - do you want them as pets? I'll email you separately (btw, did you see my reply to your luna moth inquiry?)

>>I keep thinking about a thread that occurred on the monitor forum about a year ago and a picture at a petshop.
>>The thread was from someone who was feeding off his excess bearded dragon babies to his monitor (he included a picture, which IMHO was in bad taste). The picture was of a larger chameleon eating a smaller chameleon (to illustrate why chameleons of different sizes should not be kept together).
>>I guess it's all how you look at things. One person's pet is another person's feeder item.
>>But you are right. Mantids are very beautiful animals and if I was to get a few, I would be much more inclined to keep them as pets rather than feeders.
>>BTW, anyone have a link to where you can buy Mantis egg cases?
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>>Victor Gomez
>>gomezvi.tripod.com/sdchamkeepers/
>>gomezvi@yahoo.com
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & Jetta
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta

I've been spending a lot of time lately playing this online game (Ultima Online, Pacific Shard, Gomez).
One of the animals that you're allowed to 'tame' is this thing called a skittering hopper. Looks sorta like a cross between a cricket and one of those monsters from 'Alien'. Very cute little bug.
I've trained a few and I sometimes go hunting with them. Just thought it was funny.
Now if they could come up with a chameleon looking pet.....

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Victor Gomez
gomezvi.tripod.com/sdchamkeepers/
gomezvi@yahoo.com

I really like bugs as well, growing up in wooded Florida you kind of have to or go nuts. lol I enjoy watching the crickets interact. And I was the one that feed a katydid to my chameleon *hides under desk*. I agree they are very beautiful but I was getting desperate for him to eat (hadn't eaten for about 3 days, not even silkies). I guess I've got "chameleon fever" now. Can't look at a plant without thinking "I wonder if Bender would like that kind of plant". Here's a site I found that sells Mantis eggs.
Eggs here I think I'll give it a try. I'll let you all know how it goes.

hope you're not going for the 50 cases!! There are at least 100 offspring in each egg case!

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & Jetta
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta

Hey I played that game for 4 years on catskills! then they came out with the stupid age of shadows, and made my gm tamer almost usless. I quit...
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From Sunny Florida
Jovana's kids listed below
1.1 Veileds
1.0 Ambanja Panther
1.1 Tamatave Panther

np
cool cham

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & Jetta
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta

I have a large male Veiled and I had a large male Oustelet's chameleon that I would feed large hoppers to during the summer time. I came across a couple of praying mantis's and decided to try them, they just seemed to love them as much as the hoppers. My only problem is that mantids can be beneficial predators in the ecosystem, eating other less unsavory bugs. But other than that I don't see much of a problem with them. They may occasionally latch onto a chameleon, I know they have latched onto me in the past, but just make sure the chameleon is of a good size to handle its food.

If you buy the mantis eggs, be ready to spend a fortune feeding them pinhead crix & fruit flies and then larger crix until they get bigg enough to feed to an adult cham. And be aware that mantids are cannibalistic. The feeding & ousing requirements make them useful for nothing more than an occassional, expensive treat.
Ed

>>If you buy the mantis eggs, be ready to spend a fortune feeding them pinhead crix & fruit flies and then larger crix until they get bigg enough to feed to an adult cham. And be aware that mantids are cannibalistic. The feeding & ousing requirements make them useful for nothing more than an occassional, expensive treat.
>>Ed

I haven't tried raising any mantids up but I did use them a few times for my Brookesia. I used to have a trio of B. perarmata in a large enclosure and I left an egg case in there from time to time. When the egg case hatched, about a hundred baby mantids were in the cage. I didn't bother to feed them much (they ate some of the little crickets and such that were already in the cage) and some were eaten by others but the B. perarmata loved them. I've fed mantids to C. parsonii in Madagascar and they were a well excepted treat as well.

Chris
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Chris Anderson
parsonii_hoehnelii@hotmail.com
Chameleon Care and Information Center (CCIC) - http://www.geocities.com/ccicenter/
Chameleons Online E-zine - http://www.chameleonnews.com/
Captive Chameleon Bloodline Tacking Database - http://www.chameleondatabase.com/

Hi, Chris. Yes, I imiagine they'd be great for little guys such as Brookesias, Rhampholeons, etc., as well as baby chams of the larger species. But raising them really is a pain. A much better choice are Phasmids. Too bad it's so tough to get stick bugs in the USA. But being parthenogenic vegetarians, they're a lot easir than mantids.
Ed