Pet Praying Mantis!

as long as I can remember I've always loved things in miniature whether that's modeling or building stuff making little dioramas but I think I was really attracted to preying mantises pets because they kind of remind me of like little creatures that are fairly kind of humanoid like they have faces they have arms and they're responsive and reactive to you and they're pretty fun to play with what's interesting about this species the orchid mantis is that I got it as part of a pair and it's a bit of a gamble because you might get a male or you might get a female this is a female so it's much larger it's bright pink it's really cool and they live a pretty long time this one's about 6 months old it came with a male the male died after three months after reaching adulthood I think a lot of that is so the males and females from the same generation won't breed the males will breed with last year's females and these females will breed with next year's males they're a little bit more expensive if you're gonna collect them or find them from a breeder but they're really fun to keep they're a little more temperamental just make sure you watch the temperature and the humidity and they become a pretty great pet I feed mine crickets just for how much easier it is but this is a species that really prefers flying insects if you can keep flies my girlfriend has been pretty clear that I am NOT allowed to keep fly pupae in the freezer so I can't so my refrigerator does not have any bugs in it it's been kind of a challenge to get her acclimated to the bug collection but over time I think she's pretty cool with it she especially likes it when when my bugs die of old age I'll frame them and she's been fun going to Michaels and buying frames and stuff with the orchid mantis I always think of as them one of the more popular ones because of the cool like lobes on their legs and things what a lot of people don't know about this species is they think it's supposed to be camouflaged in with the flowers so it's hiding among flowers jumps out and eats the bugs but the truth is is that they're camouflaged looking like a flower is so effective that nectar eating insects will prefer them over flowers so these are bugs that will stand out in the open by themselves try to attract whatever kind of flying insects they can and eat that so it's a it's a form of very aggressive mimicry that I think it's kind of unique to them I don't know if there's a lot of other species that look attractive to their prey to just lure them in so very cool species a little more difficult to keep definitely a little more expensive and a bit of a gamble when you do get them sometimes people will worry about praying mantis if they'll pinch you or bite you their mouths are very very tiny they don't really kill their prey by biting it like a lion would or poisoning it like a wasp would they kind of kill their prey by just eating them to death so their mouth is really more like a tiny trash compactor just kind of slowly chew on it so the mouths aren't big enough to hurt you if they pinch you they maybe but they're really really careful about not grabbing on to something that's too big for them so you're really not going to be a target for them there's some species like the giant Asian that might be big enough to try but I've never I've never experienced that I've never had one of these hurt me I'm not convinced that they even can for for such like a creature known for being super ravenous and aggressive they're pretty docile and they're kind of calculated though really sized up prey and take their time and they really jump out and grab it when they think they can take it so sometimes people ask me what what do the praying mantis eat anything they can grab so anything they think they can take down I'm gonna show you some of the other species which are ghost mantis ghost Mantis act very different from what you think of mantis what act like they're much more docile and they're kind of timid and they really focus more on their camouflage and trying not to be noticed while the orchid mantis is trying to be seen by its prey the ghost mantis is really trying to be not seen by its predators so they're trying to look like kind of like a dried leaf or maybe a stick in the wind so they'll kind of do a little dance you'll see them shake back and forth especially when I'm out at work and I come home all the Mantis will kind of turn their heads and look at me when I when I get home they all start dancing they they don't know if I'm a threat or not they just want me to think they're just a twig in the breeze very interesting this is something the Manchus dude - that's really interesting they preen themselves like a cat so they're always cleaning off their mandibles they're cleaning off their feet they're cleaning off their raptorial legs I think a lot of it is just cleanliness is important for them and for them to survive in the wild then you make sure that their feet and their hands are healthy and I always think it's funny cuz it's kind of like having a little cat I'm super allergic to cats it's one of the reasons I'm collecting bugs because my landlord said no dog so I'm ended up with kind of this weird middle ground where I have kind of a dog cat tiny creature that I can have in my in my home so it's been a lot of fun I like to miss them if I take them out if they get thirsty if they're a bit overexerted a little bit from playing they'll drink the water droplets so you can see them kind of walk around and suck them up it's really cool this is one of my ghosts mantis I'm pretty sure this is a female and not a hundred percent pretty sure it's a female ghost mantis on my favorite species they were the first ones I collected people told me that they were smaller so I could feed them smaller prey because I wasn't really ready to buy big chunky cockroaches and crickets to feed them they said they were really Hardy and pretty fun species to play with they're not as outgoing as other species they're pretty scared they also really like smaller prey they don't really want anything bigger than their head so you can feed them fruit flies longer and fruit flies are really easy to feed you can see them in the background there because they're so small and they breed really fast so you're really not gonna run out of them for a long time and they don't take up much space genomic noise they don't smell crickets and flies and other things are kind of more of a problem so if you're gonna get your first species and you want something that's cool-looking and easy to keep I definitely suggest the ghosts if you're gonna get something that you just want to be big and fawn you can take out probably a giant Asian or Chinese that is probably the best species this is the spiny flower mantis these are a really cool species are the first ones I've ever had I've always kind of skipped them they're really cool-looking great color they're not real big so I figured I wanted to try some bigger species so I've done like dead leaf mantis and some of the other bigger ones but these have been really fun and I think they got really cool coloring so I don't regret it at all they've also so far had been really easy to keep I haven't had any trouble I've had these same five mantis for months and months and they're all still really healthy so I'm glad about that this one's still pretty young I think it's only about three months old and I got these when they were really tiny so it's grown a bit but it's gonna get a little bigger it'll probably double that size when it's full grown and it'll have wings yeah it kind of reminds me of fruit stripe gum if you remember that from I guess 30 years ago kind of that that a almost birthday cake where the confetti sprinkles are baked into the the cake itself really cool species kind of in the middle as far as being outgoing or aggressive I've been able to feed them crickets the ghosts are about the same size as them and they won't take them yet so that shows that they're definitely more in line with a little more aggressive species really fun yeah I would suggest those too I think if you want to start collecting and you want to get in the hobby I think a spiny flower mantis might be a good pick Here I am feeding it oh you have to be careful with overfeeding you don't want to give it too much so I'm doing crickets and fruit flies for a little bit until it gets a little bigger I don't want it to just gorge itself that its abdomen might might get a little too big and it might actually rupture if they to much this also keeps it safe if it decides this fall and wants to molt the fruit flies aren't going to hurt it if I leave a cricket running around inside of its jar it could you know mess with it or damage it or make it fall which would be a huge problem so miss molds are one of the most common ways you're going to lose one of your mantas so make sure that the jar they're in is graduating along with their size and make sure that you are cognizant of like what kind of prey insects are inside of there don't leave too much in there and try not to leave it overnight this is something else I like to do with my pet mantis outside which is eating other bugs they really like honey so sometimes I'll give them honey as a treat honey's not hard to come by just get natural honey I don't know if it matters if it's local he's the the species of mantis aren't local I don't actually know what kind of honey they would eat in the case of the orchid mantis in Malaysia but this has been something that hasn't been a problem for them and they seem to really like it and I've noticed that the Mantis lived longer a little healthier if they have a little bit of honey once in a while and it yeah it feels like giving him a treat so I'm a big fan of it if you want to get to the Mantis hobby i really suggest starting with an easier species make sure the place you're keeping them in is big enough and not too small but also not too big because you want to make sure the prey insects you put in there whatever captivity cage you put them in they're not getting too far away because the Mantis doesn't want to hunt after them it really wants to wait till stuff comes to it so as an arboreal species something that's kind of skinnier and taller is probably the best thing for them that gives them room to molt and I'll live longer and healthier so I just wanted to do an update of what I'm doing with my bugs I haven't been keeping up with my bug videos and I felt bad and for all the people to follow these these videos I feel like I owe it to you thank you so much like and subscribe if you're interested now keep making more thank you

Channel: Enthusiclast

Views: 1,483,998

Keywords: bugs, pets, praying mantis, pet praying mantis, mantids, bugs as pets, pet bugs, cool pets, rare pets, rare bugs, weird bugs, weird pets

Id: CV_kd-h0Fh8

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 31 2019