BREEDING  continued........  A week or two later (an average is ten days), the female will produce an eggsac.  She will usually lay one every fortnight, until she runs out of sperm.  One mating will fertilise multiple eggcases.  This eggcase will be surrounded with foam, and usually glued somewhere in the tank, often near the top.  It is important here to point out any mature female mantis will produce eggcases though if she has not been mated these will not be fertile.  If possible, remove the eggcases and incubate them in a jamjar at around 25'C, though I doubt lower temperatures will inhibit hatching.

Approximately five weeks after being laid, the eggcase should hatch if kept at the above temperature.  The youngsters are all red-brwon on emergence and can number over a hundred.  With successive moults they assume their adult colours.  It appears that with each successive moult they become more
hardy, and so once past the first three or four moults, it can be assumed that rearing them should be plain sailing.

In short, these mantids are attractive and undemanding, and will be found to be an excellent introduction to keeping preying mantis.


Richard  N. Adams.  E-Mail to: rna7@aber.ac.uk