2006-06-27 02:29:45 · 10 answers · asked by arum 3 in Pets ➔ Other - Pets
I have 3 little mantids at the moment!
The best thing to do is to catch fruit flies - the little beggars that hang around your bin - and feed those to the mantis!
Mantids do NOT eat dead bugs. They need LIVE food! In some areas you can buy fruitflies, as they're also food for small lizards. (Try a tropical pet shop that sells small lizards... they should have fruitflies!)
If you want to breed fruitflies for free, put a teaspoonful of mashed banana in the bottom of a jar. Make a cone out of paper, with a 2mm hole at the point. Attach it to the jar so that the hole points downwards, seal around the edges, and wait! Once you've caught a few, give them a day to lay eggs, then release them with the mantis - although it's tricky to do it without letting the flies loose! In a week or so there'll be lots of little maggots, you can feed some to the mantis, and the others will pupate for a few days - then it's time for a fruitfly festa!
If you still haven't been able to feed it, it will die. You can see through their abdomens at this stage, and you will see the contents of your mantid's stomach as a dark blob. The empty part of it's abdomen will let light through.
If you have more than one, they will eat each other to avoid their own death.
Look around your home for small bugs too, anything that's obviously smaller than the mantis is suitable food! But it's best to avoid spiders, because they like to poison their prey ...!
Avoid leaving it with crickets or grasshoppers when it's full, because if it sheds it's skin it will be weak, and grasshoppers and crickets like to eat weak mantids. (It happened to one of mine last year, so I know. They don't normally eat the whole mantis, just it's extremities because they look like leaves or twigs.)
2006-06-29 00:16:39 · answer #1 · answered by _ 6 · 7⤊ 2⤋
Baby Praying Mantis
2016-10-08 07:59:37 · answer #2 · answered by armiso 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Praying mantis are highly predacious and feed on a variety of insects, including moths, crickets, grasshoppers and flies. They lie in wait with the front legs in an upraised position. They intently watch and stalk their prey. They will eat each other.
Just an interesting fact: Adult Praying mantises are known to capture and kill hummingbirds.
2006-06-27 02:33:20 · answer #3 · answered by Hawk996 6 · 2⤊ 4⤋
they can eat anything... roaches, grasshoppers.. i used to have an emporor scorpion and my friend had a mantis and we tried to see who would win, but they just avoided each other for about two weeks (even though the mantis still managed to eat all of the grasshoppers in the cage)... so we decided they both deserved their own tanks...
you can buy diff. size grasshoppers at any petsmart but i guess it's size should determine what kind of bugs it can eat, and don't get too many grasshoppers at first because when they grow wings and start chirping it can get very annoying... also get it a small water dish and either keep some (very little) water in it, or something damp...
hope that helps
2006-06-27 02:36:48 · answer #4 · answered by Jonny Propaganda 4 · 3⤊ 5⤋
It depends on many factors
2016-08-14 02:27:27 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just for the fun of it try baby food. If you can't get any of that try grinding up some of the food you eat. If that is too hard than give them milk. There are a couple of bumps on your chest that you may consider putting to good use.
Praying Mantis????? Where in hell did you get that?
2006-06-27 02:36:46 · answer #6 · answered by John B 5 · 0⤊ 12⤋
baby crickets
2006-06-27 02:33:05 · answer #7 · answered by Alex F 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I would have thought smaller dead insects - you can buy little containers in pet shops that have tons of dead small insects in!
2006-06-27 02:33:31 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 7⤋
baby hummingbirds
2006-06-27 02:35:48 · answer #9 · answered by cyberjake2006 2 · 1⤊ 8⤋
oh my. not sure what to feed it, but they really shouldn't be kept as pets. set it free!
2006-06-27 02:34:30 · answer #10 · answered by trinity729 3 · 0⤊ 10⤋