Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Little bit of back story, I raised some mantis as feeders and of course I had to keep one as a pet (okay, so most all of them got adopted by my friends as pets as well hehe). He/She has gotten rather large, about 4 inches long now. He lives in/on an open topped birdcage with some plants in it. Also hangs out on the big lamp shade next to it. Okay, so on to my point... This evening I came home to see Bender (cham) was clinging to the front of his cage. As it was way past his bed time, I was a bit worried. Then I saw that the mantis had somehow made it over there (good 5-7 feet) and was hunting the chameleon!! And Bender was trying to hunt him back. It was a rather funny sight! Just thought I'd share that.

i'm guessing the mantis would have lost that battle...are mantids a good food source??...how would i go about getting started a mantis culture??...if you could point me in the right direction i would appreciate it

lol I don't know... Mantis has very big pointy hands. Could possibly do some damage, he's latched onto me before. Guess I smell like his food. To get started is fairly easy. Order some pods online or try your local garden center. Online I used www.gardeningzone.com. Unless you have a ton of space and free time, I'd suggest just getting 3 pods (smallest amount). Between 50-200 baby mantis will hatch out of each pod. I kept mine in 30 and 10 gallon tanks for the first week. Feed them fruit flies before their first shed. They should shed after about a week. They will double in size with this shed. Now you want to get them apart from each other. I used large plastic cups with paper towel rubber banded on top. Other people have suggested old panty hose. Feed fruit flies and tiny pin head crickets everyday and also mist daily. Just a tiny bit, enough to give a bit of water and raise humidity. If they make it past their second shed, they'll most likely live to adulthood. They will continue to shed about once a week till sub adult. As they get bigger, you can feed them superworms, mealworms, wax worms, and silk worms. Make sure the food isn't more than half their size. When they're about to shed, they will refuse food, to the point of being scared of it. Remove any insects at this time (I suggest removing any biting insects after a few hours if not eaten). That's about all I can think of right now. Fairly simple to raise them and my chameleon really liked them. Baby mantis would also be great for baby chameleons. Sorry for such a long post lol

thank you for the long post!!!...all that info was great...thanks for going into so much detail

Yes, mantids make great feeders. They are large, green, etc. and a real treat for chams. I doubt one would have enough time to injure a cham that grabbed it.