Praying Mantis Care

[hadgo1]

Hi I'm getting a praying mantis tomorrow. I've read a few care sheets but is there any simple guidelines i must follow? Thanks for any advice you give me!

[bmsonline]

What species are you getting? Care sheets are species specific.

Alex

[hadgo1]

African Mantis. I saw its good for beginners but can they eat standard size crickets??

[joeyboy]

depends how big it is when you get it, at adult size they no probs but depending on the size of the nymph standard size crickets will probably be too big.

Anyways they are really easy to keep, it was my first mantid like 2-3 years ago. I brought it from the pet shop and tbh didn't know what i was doing and yet it lived happily for 18 months!

I kept it in a large faunarium which was put on it's side so it was tall rather then long. I got a fake vine plants from the pet shop and then some long thing twigs from my back garden( i took the bark off em in case it had stuff on). I put some soil from the garden on the bottom, which in hinesight was a terrible idea because it probably had all sorts of stuff in but ah well. Anyways i set it all up, misted it like once every two days and that was it. I didn't use a heatmat, even in winter, but then again if the computer n tv and the radiator on in my room it seems to get warm even in winter. Never dropped below 15c in here i don't think.

[hadgo1]

Sadly i didn't get the praying mantis as they were breeding stock but were up in the sale section which really got me confused but i am still looking and if anyone is selling any or knows where any are being sold in the Stoke-On-Trent are P.M. me. Thanks

Tom

[blackbat67]

macro junkie and shep are the people to ask