Saturday, January 31, 2009

Carnivorous pets

Our 100+ mantises have died off over this last week until we now have about a dozen left. We have discovered why there are so many nymphs per ootheca; it's because they're quite stupid and most of them die from starvation (running away from their food in fear), drowning (in the 1/8 inch of water in their water dish), or major body trauma (when they trip and fall off of the walls/ceiling of their habitat)! The ones that are left have gotten much more coordinated; we also knew they had started to eat their fruit flies because the flies would all disappear overnight. Last night we finally got to see a mantis eating a fruit fly -- it was so exciting! I tried to get a picture; it's not great, but it's the best one I could get (the mantis is on the bottom right; his head, as well as his prey in his pincers, are pointing to 7-8 o'clock).

2 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

Nature in a nutshell......very cool! Will you let them loose in your garden come Spring?

Anonymous said...

When will they big enough to eat
Guess Who??