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Phyllocrania paradoxa
GHOST MANTIS
  
Special notes: Not a mantis for a beginner. You must have had experience to raise this species. This mantis is notorious for molting low to the ground, causing a high mismolt rate and lots of frustration. Most ghosts are not acceptive to handfeeding and forcefeeding is usually always used for this species. Ghosts, unlike most mantids, drink a lot of water and must be watered every other day. Dehydration is perfectly capable of killing this particular species. They are not very aggressive and if full ignore their prey. They are a communal species; to tell each other that they are mantids and not food, they 'wave' their arms in a sort of dance like motion.
2.10.08 Yeah, I forgot to update. Anyway, ghost female one is a nice green color and subsubadult. Ghost female two is a molt behind and a light dirty brown and starting to green a little. And, the ghost male is L5 (I think) and is light brown. I'm slowing him down.
Pic was taken a while ago. Now the mantis on the far right is a dirtier, lighter brown and has tinges of green here and there. The one one on the far left is the male.
Also, I was sent an ootheca from Tier just in case the male mismolts and doesn't make it to adulthood.
12.4.07 The really crippled paradoxa molted a couple days ago, and it can now hold prey with its arms so handfeeding isn't that troublesome. Also, the greenish brown female is now even more green, she is such a striking color! I hope she will maintain this coloration up 'til adulthood.
11.26.07 This morning I came to check on the mantids, and found my female P. paradoxa molting into an L5. However, she looked dry, and she was still in her exoskeleton. Immediately I opened the cage and pulled her from it. She is developing a nice green shade and a light brown color (which is surprising since she was nearly black before the molt), and she just lay there in my hand. I was blaming myself for not making their enclosures humid, since "humidity affects molts", but after ten minutes, she seemed to get a lot better and is functioning normally. Ghosts like to play tricks on you.
11.22.07 The other two still haven't molted yet, though I expect one female to molt any day now, she's very fat. The male seems to have developed some kind of routine. He'll strike and capture three or four prey items, and then that's it for the day. Anything else put in there after his limit is ignored. This didn't work for fruit flies, since he was really skinny because he only ate three of them, but once I bumped him up to houseflies he is fatter.
11.19.07 One of the paradoxa molted into an L5 (the male)... am I off track with instars? I think I am, because that means that he has two more molts before he totally matures. o_O; Also, using a new technique to sex paradoxas,
I found that I have two females and one male.
11.14.07 The paradoxa that was really deformed molted into an L4 sometime today. It's better, but its forearms are still deformed, so I will still handfeed it.
11.10.07 The paradoxa that had a slight malformation in its forearm and skimpy leg molted into an L4 this morning. Now its skimpy leg is no longer skimpy, as it is the same size as the other legs. Now I have two L4's, and to top that off, I now stand corrected. The little molter is a female. ;) I now know I have 2 males, one L3 and one L4, and one L4 female! Woot! Hopefully I can rear the pair to adulthood without any problems to breed this species.
The male is the one on the right. He's lighter in color and has a lot more lobes and texture to his exoskeleton than the female, the one on the left. She is much darker in coloration and has less texturation on her exo.
11.09.07 I ordered three nymphs from the online breeder Rebecca Salutric. I think all three are male, but I am not sure. I know for sure one is male; it ahead of the others by one instar ('tis L4). Ghost mantids are a communal species and can be kept together, but I house them individually (force of habit I guess). Ghosts are also notorious for molting low to the ground and because of this, I have one ghost that I must force feed because both of his forearms are badly mangled. One of them is stuck out to the side and still encased in previous molt exo. I couldn't get it off. One of the others has a slight malformation in one of the forearms, it is missing its sticky foot, and is missing one of its legs. The leg has regenerated a little bit. You can tell it lost that one leg because the leg is much smaller than the others. Other than that, the mantis can catch prey perfectly fine. He is real fat right now so I am expecting him to molt soon. The last one, the one ahead of the others, has lightened in color and is an excellent hunter. I do hope to breed this species as they are quite stunning to look at. I will have to find a female if I am left with all males but I am sure that some online breeders will have some. They are currently taking d. hydei, but the L4 is occasionally fed small crickets.
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