Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone,

Well, we finally got around to ordering some praying mantis egg cases. We've only had them one week and one of the egg cases hatched this morning! I never even had time to order fruit flies.

So I ordered fruit flies this morning, but in the meantime, I've been trying to find tiny bugs in the yard to give them, as I was under the impression that you had to feed them as soon as they hatched. Well, so far, they don't seem to be interested in anything. Tried very small ants (the size of pinhead crickets) and nope, they ignored those. Found a baby spider, tried to offer it to one of the escapee mantids roaming around in our office... nope, no go. Ended up finding a bunch of little black-ish bugs on some of our sunflower leaves, so we tore off some of the leaves and put those in the mantid container. Nope, those are being ignored, too.

Is it typical for newborn mantids to not eat? Do they need more time for their exoskeleton to harden or something? Or am I just not offering the right foods?

Thanks for any advice! As a side note, these critters really are WAY cool!!! :-D

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

Congrats on your new mantis! My new generation of mantis hatched yesterday and were alllll over my room when I got home (wasn't ready for them lol hatched in 4 weeks from being laid). They do really really love fruit flies, but they might not want to eat the very first day. How many hatched? If you have a lot... and i know this will sound really bad, but if the fruit flies don't arrive for a few days, if they get too hungry, they will eat each other. *hides under desk* Be careful with the ants... they will attack the mantis. I lost a few to house ants and the mantis never seemed to want to eat them.

LOL I can just imagine them running around all over your room! What a riot!! Hope you don't have any roommates or anything to go bezerk... LOL

I did a really quick count and it looks like about 150-200 of them hatched. I still have two other egg cases. I ended up releasing a few in the yard and set some aside for a friend. So now, I've got a little over 100 of them in a 5-gallon tank. The little black bugs I put in there manage to squeeze out of the tank and now they're getting everywhere. ARGH!!

I ordered 4 vials of melanogaster fruit flies from Reptilefood.com. They're supposed to ship tomorrow, so I'm expecting them Friday.

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

isn't it great when they hatch before you expect them too, lol!!...your going to need alot of "fruit walks" to feed all those mantids...i have 50 left out of about 200 and they are seperated in plastic cups now...it's amazing how fast they grow!!..best of luck to you

lol Yes, it was rather funny. I spent about 5 miuntes laughing, they get everywhere. I actually do have roommates. Thankfully they think that the mantis are totally cool. Kept a few from my last batch as pets. They do make wonderful pets, I left mine free roam of my room. Oh, if you happen to have any baby meal worms, they will eat those if not too big. Give them a bit of misting too, they like the water. If everything goes well, they should shed in a week, maybe less (depends on how much they eat). They will double in size when they do, but they still love fruit flies. I found that the adults will eat them too.