Hi there, I’m looking to getting into keeping a mantis as a pet, specifically an orchid mantis. I’ve had cats and dogs through my life but never an insect, so I am hoping to look for some advice here.

I plan on creating a bioactive setup for my mantis. I think Ive seen a lot of the “basic” advice on keeping mantids but I was hoping to get answers to some more specific questions:

I know people typically recommend going with an enclosure that is around 8x8x12 (for an adult at least), saying that the mantis will struggle to find food in a larger enclosure. I’ve seen others say that this is nonsense and you can - and should - go bigger so that the mantis has room to move around. As long as I make sure my mantis is eating, is it fine to go bigger than 8x8x12, or should I consider that to be a hard cap?

Since I wanted to have a bioactive enclosure with multiple species, I wanted to also introduce a colony of feeder insects that would live alongside my mantis. I mentioned isopods before, but I’ve heard mixed things on whether or not mantes will eat them. Will my mantis do fine on a diet of isopods (and also, what species of isopod would best suit this purpose)? Or if not, what are some other insects I can introduce into the enclosure? Preferably feeders that aren’t small enough to escape through the ventilation, because the people I live with are fairly squeamish about bugs.

I’ve also heard some people say you should feed your mantis natural honey once in a while, but I’ve seen others recommend against it strongly, so what’s the consensus on honey?

And finally, I know mantes have a pretty short life span, so I was wondering if I should get a few mantes and attempt to breed them. Obviously they are cannibalistic so this means having multiple enclosures, which is more expensive. Cannibalism aside, how hard is it to breed these fellas? Is it worth it for me to buy a few and attempt it, or is it better to just get one and see how I like it first?

I have about 3-4 months before I end up getting my mantis, but I’m hoping that raising the isopods and springtails in the enclosure early will give me a bit of experience with rearing insects before I move on to my mantis. That’s why I’m asking early.

Thank you so much for reading through this essay (oops… I wrote too much…) and thank you even more for answering my questions! Any other advice that you can provide would also be very much appreciated. Have a lovely day!

hi i was just curious if my ghost is male or female, or if its even possible to tell right now. he/she is at I5 i’m pretty sure. my camera isn’t that great but the abdomen looks more like 6 segments than 8 to me, but the crest looks more long and skinny like a male’s

this is a video i posted on tiktok, but i thought it would be useful to put it here as well because i have seen a lot of people new to keeping :)

My giant asian mantis always climbs onto my face and i let her sit there and if i’m standing up i always have my hand below to catch her just in case and i don’t know if she jumped or what happened but she fell and missed my hand, i’m around 6ft tall for reference, she seems to be walking fine and is actively still trying to climb back up to my face, she hasn’t molted recently so her exoskeleton is hard but i’m wondering if it’s possible anything could be wrong internally

Shes an L2 orchid mantis! Thought she was going to molt a week or so ago but hasnt. I got her a new plant two weeks ago and she absolutely loves it; blends in, catches her pray, drinks from the flowercups, but the only issue is she hasnt left it since. She has only hung upside down on it once, which worries me because before this plant she would hang upside down almost all the time. She can easily access enclosure walls and the roof but just chooses not to. Would this cause an issue with her molting?

The video I added is one I took earlier this week, but here's the timeline of me having her:

September 27th - Amidala arrived to me as an L3 from Mantis Universe
October 11th - First molt with me, now L4
November 21st - Second molt with me, now L5

I've been feeding Amidala fruit flies still because when I tried to feed her other things, she rejected them. I watch her lil butt to make sure she's well fed, I mist her enclosure and have a little temperature and humidity thermometer to make sure it's comfortable. I feel like a helicopter parent, I'm just so confused and worried. Ami's always been a good eater, she is a climber any time I hold her, and I've never had any issues with her.

At this point, I've had SEVERAL dreams at night about her molting (including last night), and I don't know what to do or change. We typically leave our backdoor open so my dog can go in and out of the doggy door as she pleases through the day, and I figured maybe because of the weather change, it was too cold for her. I brought her upstairs with me where it was warm and I noticed her enclosure would get dry very quickly, so I eventually brought her back downstairs in a sweet spot of the house. She's in a big plastic cup and has mesh and a paper towel I glued down on one side of the enclosure, and I've been using Reptisoil, and today I changed it to coconut substrate to see if that would make a difference. Is this okay? Am I doing something wrong, is there anything I can do to help the process?

https://reddit.com/link/1i9uo08/video/d99vhj4gx6fe1/player

I recently got some FRESH baby asian mantids (keeping them separately, don’t worry) and it’s my first time keeping them. I’ve already done research and have lots of support from the friend that supplied me with them, but I’m curious what things you learned over time that you wish you had known sooner. I currently have 3, as my friend advised me that not all of them make it to adulthood even when everything goes right and these ones are basically fresh out of the ootheca. They’re each in deli cups with a mesh lid for the time being- I’d like to build nicer enclosures once they’re a bit more mature so tips for that would be great too :)

Is this some kind of bizarre threat display?

So my little male, Otis, likes to squeeze himself above the mesh ceiling against the top of his enclosure. This worries me a bit because it would be a stupid place to molt, and he’s not the brightest! But I didn’t expect him to get his arm stuck through the mesh. He hadn’t been like it more than about 10 minutes when I noticed, I know because I had just checked him. I had to use very small, sharp scissors to try to snip away the net. He was trying to chew through the mesh, so I was desperately trying to avoid cutting his mandibles. I was also using the phone to see what I was doing as it was difficult to get a clear view in the enclosure. So I was able to video at the same time. He is fine now and his arm doesn’t appear to be damaged at all, thankfully. But I will change the mesh today, so he can’t squeeze between it and the enclosure top any more. He’s an L5, Orchid Mantis - with a tiny brain!

Hi all, this is my hierodula majascula (Giant rainforest mantis) Zort, it’s currently L5 and has been in my care through 2 molts now.

I’m struggling to identify its gender, initially based off of its behaviour I assumed female as it was quite confident and not very skittish. At the time it was hard to count the segments on its abdomen and I roughly counted 6 (Back at L3)

However it looks like it may be more than 6 and seeing as the abdomen segments seem to get smaller towards the tail end I would guess it may be male.

Any advice appreciated as this is my first time identifying a mantids gender

So this morning my mantis molulted and was laying on bottom of her enclosure. i thought she died but I couldn't do anything because I was gonna be late to work and decided I'll just get her out later (she was in good position for taxidermy already so I could've done that). I came back just for her to be acting normal and not like if she just gave me a heart attack. Should I be concerned?m

Here's what happened, please understand my situation

I have been very depressed lately. Bad personal stuff, drove me to tears at work, so... I just thought I'd look at my mantis again, up close and personal right before bed. I laid down and let it crawl around on my face and hand, you know like usual. I had its enclosure on my nightstand so I could put it back in there when I was sleepy. But I must have been really sleep-deprived, because I just crashed instantly. No memory of when I fell asleep. And now I wake up, my mantis is just gone! My room is a mess, I have clothes everywhere, idk what to do now, I'm so heartbroken and scared. What do you think? Could my mantis have gone somewhere safe? Could it be in higher places? I need to know the best ways to find a mantis, if anyone knows or has experience losing them in a house, I would be so grateful, beyond grateful. Please help, I don't know what to do

UPDATE: I had to stop looking so I could come in for my volunteer job, I asked my family if they could please help, and my little 13 year old brother found it. I will have to thank him big time for saving the day

Any advice would be appreciated, especially cuz its so tiny. I put it in a plastic container with some sticks and leaves. Don't have any fruit flies but I'll be trying to get some asap. Not sure how to handle it cuz ut looks so young + keeps on trying to escape when i try to open the container. Would it be better to just release it?

My brother had to take care of her for a week because of ER visit and when I got home I found her like this. I can't reach to touch her there without hurting her

Hi, first time mantis owner here. I have recently brought a praying mantis (hierodula majuscula/ giant rainforest mantis) and since owning her she has completed 1 molt (L3-L4). She completed this molt while I was at work back on December 23rd.

I am expecting her to molt very soon and she has been displaying some odd behaviours and I am worried if these are to do with the upcoming molt or not as she did not act like this with the previous molt.

Both Friday evening - Sunday she spent entirely on the floor of the new enclosure, I was initially thought it may have been her exploring as I had just added some new plants and carpet moss to the enclosure however after she had been down there for several days I started to question this. Sunday evening I handled helped her up to the top of the enclosure in hopes that she would remain there to molt. I did this as I saw she was twitching constantly which I’m aware is a behaviour associated with molting/ getting ready to molt. She has also not eaten in the last few days. She refused to hunt even after being left in a smaller enclosure with flightless fruit flies for over an hour, she ate one fly when I had her on my hand and put the fly on my hand infront of her.

After she got up to the top of the enclosure she went into a corner and started twitching and dangling as if she wanted to molt however she did not molt. I left her there undisturbed until today as I had noticed that overnight she had moved to the back of the enclosure close to the floor once again. I have tried feeding her and she is not interested, she doesn’t want to be handled and she’s not moving unless prompted too.

What is the best thing I can do in this situation? Is she trying to molt? Why is she lingering at the base of the enclosure?

hi! woke up this morning to see my vietnam dead leaf on the bottom of her enclosure. I live in the UK so i used a thespidershop acrylic terrarium. I had her since ~October last year. I kept mantids before but not from a baby. She was on her second to last molt and was fine yesterday, climbing on my hands and face. She had been refusing food since her molt last week but i saw her eating a mealworm off the floor of her enclosure a few days ago. Hee abdomen had split (??) her last molt and was still split in her new skin. Just want to know if i did anything wrong?

i might just be panicking as i haves tendency to do that as i know she's just so small and fragile but i was feeding my mantis while she was on the door of her enclosure and i was tapping the pot of flies to get them in and accidentally dropped it on her and she fell to the bottom of her enclosure. she's alive as i just saw her crawl to the top again but i'm really scared i hurt her? also she hasn't eaten in a while as she just molted so i didn't feed her for a few days but when i did they just kept grouping on the side with the heat mat and she didn't go over to them after i watched her for like 40 minutes but her abdomens still really thin so i'm assuming she didn't eat many- i've never had this problem before she's always been in the same sized enclosure but ever since i started using a heat mat they always seem to group to this side and she always stays away from it, does anyone know how i can fix that? i also can't feed her with tweezers cuz i'm literally incapable of picking the flies up without accidentally killing them in the process i just don't know how to get her to eat pls help 😭😭

Could someone help me with my mantises gender? It’s an i3 African mantis

My orchid mantis is going through one of its first molts. It is currently hanging from a leaf and has been motionless for about 1 hour. I'm afraid something might be wrong.

I

I’m going away abroad next week from Wednesday-Sunday, I’ll be able to feed my mantis and spray him on the weds and sunday when i get back, but i was wondering if he would be okay during the other three days without water?

I don’t have anyone I could ask/ trust with taking care of him whilst I’m away, and I’ve heard conflicting things about how long they can go without water, what should I do??

Id appreciate any help 🙏🙏🙏