Odontomantis planiceps
ANT MANTIS
Special notes: When these mantids are nymphs, they have great ant mimicry, complete with a fake stinger. As they get older, they lose their black coloring and ant look. This species is small, and you must start them out with D. melanogaster. The male is extremely jumpy and skittish, and will take off flying at any given moment so be cautious as you can easily lose one of these mantids. The nymphs take off running once you open their containers, so be extra cautious as you can wind up with an escapee!
2.10.08 Well, the adult ant male is dead. He did not live very long. I think he may have died of starvation (oops...). And, the other ant nymph "died" a few days ago, yet today he is perfectly fine. o_O
1.26.08 I fed male number one a lot, and then mated him with the female! She was very old and therefore experienced - opened up to him right away.
1.17.08 One of the two O. planiceps nymph males I recieved from Rebecca molted to adult. Totally unexpected!
1.01.08 I lost all the ant nymphs because I was stupid enough to put them in a humid cage with no ventilation... and the female's ooths are getting smaller and smaller and may no longer contain eggs. Hopefully I can continue on with this species.
12.24.07 One of the ooths I kept hatched 7 nymphs. I sold the rest of the ootheca.
12.4.07 O. planiceps ooth number 3! At this rate I'm going to have to start selling these ooths off soon.
11.28.07 Tonight my female laid her second ooth, but two days ago, unfortunately, one of the nymphs mismolted and is now dead. I think he molted on the side with the papertowels, so he lost his grip. The other one I found was on the ground, but as I stuck my hand in there to help him, he ran away, so I'm guessing he fell but still managed to get free of the exo okay. Because of this, I'm taking the paper towel out of all my nymphs' enclosures so they don't molt on it from the side.
11.26.07 The L3 is now taking d. hydei easily. Another one of the L2's molted into an L3, I thought at first this one was a goner because it was on the floor but seemed to molt alright. o_O
11.23.07 One of the nymphs molted into an L3, but still seems skittish around d. hydei.
11.21.07 After laying her ooth, I see some of her awesome aggressive behavior. These mantids will chase down their prey and tackle them at large sizes.
11.20.07 She wasn't eating today, and admittingly I was a bit disappointed since everyone said that ant mantids were aggressive. I was soon to find out why she wasn't eating!
11.20.07 I recieved the package this morning. The female is extremely jumpy, I can't imagine how the male must be. She ate one d. hydei, and didn't eat the cricket or other d. hydei I offered her. The nymphs are really nice, I have heard that they escape easily and run quite frequently, though I don't think they are as squirmy as the O. distinctus. I didn't expect them to be so small... d. melanogaster, yup. An even better reason for buyfruitflies.com to hurry up and ship my order!! The nymphs, however, are quite fat so I don't have to worry about them starving since Rebecca already fattened them for me during and before transit.
11.15.07 I ordered a couple of O. planiceps, a fertile female and 3 nymphs from the breeder Rebecca. She says she'll ship it out Monday.
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