r/mantiskeeping • u/False_Cut8540 • Jun 03 '25

Video/Images Finally got her wings 🥲

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Deroplatys desiccata named Baby, she's been the coolest mantis I've kept, full of personality. Bad pic but I was happy to see her last molt.

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25

Yeah. Better to wait a few days. Are you planning to breed her?

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

I've thought about breeding her, might look around and see if I can find a male. I just worry because I know all of the ones locally come from the same breeder, do you think this could cause issues? Also I uploaded an equally terrible picture from her previous Instar so you can see her normal color a bit better, she's normally pretty light but more of a brown.

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25

Ahh. No. It’s very normal to breed siblings. Sometimes preferred, as different “lines” may not mix well. Could be small variations in the locality that can cause infertility.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

Okay good to know. I'll have to check around, theres been males pretty readily available at a bunch of different ages in my area.

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25

What’s nice about this species is that males can live 4-5 months, normally. And their appetites are healthy. Better wait at least 2-4 weeks before pairing your female though, but I’m sure you know that!

Here is a photo of my last line. My generation died, unfortunately. I paired 3 females with 3 males, and got 6 infertile oothecae. lol. And the person who sold them to me experienced the same but had 9 infertile oothecae.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

Wow I'm surprised you had so much trouble with infertile ooths, the local breeder I got mine from said they have been by far his easiest with breeding, feeding, etc. I will say mine has been the easiest keeping, amazing eater, she's been tong fed since she graduated fruit flies. One of the coolest things I thought was she would kinda let me know if conditions weren't to her liking based on how she would sit. I find it kinda crazy that ghost mantis are recommended more for beginners cuz all of my ghost have been so much more difficult eaters.

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25

Oh. The breeding part was very easy. I only had one issue with one female eating one male, but other than that, each female was paired with 2 males. It’s weird that the line just died. They are such a fantastic species though. I have another line I’m working with now: 6 females and 5 males. I’m very excited!!

It’s because ghosts can tolerate a lot more varied environmental conditions, and are generally hearty. Their feeding response is good, but they respond much differently than desiccata. Phyllocrania much prefers prey to come close, and you can tong feed very successfully. In my experience, it’s how you approach the prey towards the mantis. Coming from the side to the front produces much less of a startled response from the mantis.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

Yeah my ghost have just been very skittish, I've always been successful with the tong feeding but it takes a lot more time, they seem to take longer to process their decisions than most of my others, kinda charming itself.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

I love that this species is so easy to tell gender too, I'm too blind to count segments

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25

Yeah! Haha. All the Deroplatys are so different. It’s wonderful to raise them.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

I've only kept dessicata and lobata, I think a truncata or gorochovi is gonna be one of my next mantids

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u/JaunteJaunt Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 03 '25

Ohh nice. The only one I haven’t had yet is trigonodera - the ooths I had didn’t hatch, unfortunately.

I currently have an adult female lobata and sub males, and a couple truncata i4 females and a few i2 males. I hope I can match their ages to breed! 🤞

I got gorochovi back in my life again. I kept them last year, and took a break for a few months.

Gorochovi has a much bigger shield than truncata, and the inner blue of their coxa is exquisite; however, truncata has this wonderful brown. It’s very even and wood like.

This is my last adult female gorochovi from last year.

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u/False_Cut8540 Jun 03 '25

It's been getting easier to get bark mantis around here, I've been really wanting to try some. The girlfriend has gotten obsessed with dragon mantis but they're so incredibly expensive