r/praying_mantis

Okay I am probably so annoying but I am genuinely just a worried new praying mantis owner trying to do things right lol. I just got my L2/L3 ghost mantis nymph King Boo earlier this week and he seems to have acclimated to his enclosure really well and especially loves hanging off of the flowers or the netting on the top of the enclosure. However, I have noticed that despite me shaking in some fruit flies a few different times, his abdomen is very flat so today, I decided to feed him just a teensy bit of honey which he enjoyed and then just to experiment, I put him in his original shipping cup thing with a fruit fly to see if he would take it and he refused to go anywhere near it. What do I do in this situation?

When I first got my pair of Chinese mantids, I fed them fruit flies from i2 - i5 (i shouldve started feeding bottle flies earlier). But a week into i4 for both my mantids I started feeding blue bottle flies as soon as they emerged from their pupae and the time intervals between my mantid's molts went from 4 weeks to 2 weeks. Between each molt I would document how much cm they grew and it was not as much as I expected. They are both currently i7 and males and they are both 4.6 cm and I do not believe they are subadult. Images shows the wing buds on one of them, my hand size, and hand to mantis comparison. I dont actually know if this is normal growth or if my mantids are smaller then avg because of my decisions

We believe our dead leaf mantis is a boy as I’ve counted 7/8 segments, would just like other’s opinions or confirmation 🍂

See also a photo of our new Giant Asian 🌿 we are so very excited to see this little one grow !! Name suggestions welcomed, though too young to tell sex yet

5 giant rainforest mantis nymphs, fingers crossed for a chance at breeding these pretty little ones.

I purchased an orchid mantis ootheca online & this is what I received? What’s the likelihood that it’s going to hatch? It looks completely dead to me. 😭

circled in case difficulty seeing.
wondering if she is premolting, she’s been hanging upside down n hardly ever moving for about 3-4 days now. last time i fed her was 3 days ago and as u can tell she still looks super plump. legs r positioned fairly loose and raptorials held close to her body. haven’t tried to feed her as i didnt want to disturb her especially since she looks full still. looked at her just now and seemingly flinched at nothing? but other than that she’s only turned around or walked a couple steps from that current position over the last few days. also can provide clearer photos, this one ain’t clear cos i didn’t want to flash her. thanks in advance

My sibylla pretiosa which I have had for six month has laid an infertile ootheca as per usual, but her abdomen seems to be stuck on the ootheca. The problem is that when an ootheca is all dried up, it is quite solid and I am afraid that pulling her out would result in a deadly injury.
What should I do ?

Hi, had Mrs Miyagi (a rescue as she’s lost a front leg) since February, today she has some sort of a head injury, is she dying? I know her days are numbered. I’m so worried about my girl I love her a lot.

I just ordered a hierodula majuscula and he’s about I2-3. He arrived brown even though all nymphs of this species I’ve seen are green. I’m worried I got the wrong mantis. Can anyone confirm his species? And will he eventually turn green?
(last picture is one i found online of a timor shield nymph that looks exactly like him)