#heterochaeta

[happilyjovialmantids]

Heterochaeta orientalis 🖤

[thesewersofparis]

such a long young lady!!!!

[mantischildren]

introducing the new kids, candy and cookie!very hard to get a good picture, theyre tiny!

[kamakiricollection]

Heterochaeta orientalis

[underthehedge]

Heterochaeta orientalis, one of the longest mantids in culture, awesome looking things, alas, due to poor lighting, much of the detail is lost.

Also a picture of my hand with a biro, as I assume most of you don't know how big my hands are.

[happilyjovialmantids]

Heterochaeta orientalis L5

She is so amazingly colorful

[mantischildren]

Candy had her first fly larva today and she was quite confused at first. But she figured it out quickly!

[happilyjovialmantids]

Heterochaeta orientalis, L2

[mantischildren]

She loves making a mess, doesn't she.

[mantischildren]

[mantischildren]

[kamakiricollection]

Heterochaeta orientalis

[mantischildren]

I just bought some mantis egg cases; I previously tried to raise mantids before, but they ended up eating each other, despite regular feeding. Any advice on what I can do better this time around?

hi!! unfortunately most mantises will eat anything that looks edible, including their siblings. the only advice i can give besides making sure theres a more tempting food source available most of the time is only even trying this with species that are known to rarely be cannibalistic or aggressive - phyllocrania paradoxa and heterochaeta orientalis are the ones immediately coming to mind because ive kept these.  HOWEVER while the paradoxa were nice to each other for most of their life until, well, they werent, known cannibal Candy Lecter (my stick mantis) ate her sister pretty much immediately  but many kinds of hierodula will even attack and attempt to eat fingers, so theyre way more aggressive and keeping them in groups shouldn’t even be attempted imo. its probably always best to look up experiences by other breeders and mantis keepers when it comes to specific species

[mantischildren]

ok sorry if this is a stupid question, but mantids have always been my fav insect and ive always wanted to keep some. but ever since i learned that they can eat things like turtles, i'm always worried about if they can bite me very painfully 😅 since their mandibles are apparently that strong. has any of your mantids drawn blood? how do you avoid getting nibbled?

oh man,  this is actually something i have experience in.if you go through my #mine tag, youll actually see that i have made several posts about my hierodula membranacea Babey, who absolutely LOVES fingers, including a pic of my bleeding finger.im not gonna lie, a grown 11cm mantis biting you in the tip of your finger DOES hurt. especially since you dont want to pry her off forcefully and potentially hurt her, so she will continue digging in.BUT, dear anon, good news.it is VERY easy to avoid. 

a) the smaller a mantis, the smaller their mandibles and it also depends on the species. Candy, my heterochaeta orientalis, is very long, but her head is small and fragile. she even gets different food from other mantises her size because her mouth is tiny. i got bitten by paradoxa before and its barely noticeable. like a tiny faint needle prick. 

different species are also different degrees of aggressive. paradoxa are very timid and allegedly even live well together in groups, so the likelihood of them attacking you is pretty much zero. meanwhile hierodula are big, strong, and aggressive (those are also amongst the ones that can catch hummingbirds, ive never heard of turtles) and have much sharper offensive reflexes. so depending on the species you wanna get you might not even have anything to worry about!

b) they dont attack randomly and dont typically bite in defense. they usually make themselves tall and kind of ‘punch’ with their arms when they feel threatened. no biting involved. whenever babey bit me it was because i was too impatient in handling her and my wriggling finger seemed like a food source - or i stupidly fed her crickets from my hands because im an idiot. shes big, so a finger seems like adequate prey to her.

all this can be avoided by getting proper equipment like tweezers you can feed them from and when you collect them from their terrarium scooping them up with a thick stick or a big cup or something first. once they’re securely on your hand it is unlikely theyll still decide to bite you. im also a firm believer that they /do/ get used to handling if you do it frequently enough, even if they can’t be trained in the classical sense. 

c) no venemous species of mantises exist, so except for the pain from the wound theres not really anything that can happen and it heals quickly. 

d) the sharp spines on their femurs that they use to hold their prey can be pretty painful as well (comparable to blackberry thorns) but again, it is unlikely you will be caught like that unless youre confused with food! Potato once accidentally ‘caught’ me because my hand was next to a cricket and immediately released me once she realized her mistake. 

tl;dr biting is rare and can be very easily avoided. i know breeders who have never ever been hurt! so dont let that stop you from keeping these lovable beauties if you want to!hope i could be of help :3

[mantischildren]

L4 heterochaeta orientalis

[mantischildren]

on that note heterochaeta orientalis are supposed to be non-aggressive and suitable for group keeping, but candy literally ate her sister at l4 and only left a single arm as proof and continues to try to attack and eat everything at her 5cm length. i love her so much but she is terrifying.