Ghost Mantis making her eggcase

[swords]

This morning I found my female Ghost Mantis laying an egg case (ootheca)

Now the waiting game begins to see if she was fertilized before she ate the boys.

 

[Nepenthes101]

WOW!!!! That thing is awesome. Congrats on the eggs.

 

[manzano167]

the ootheca is huge!

 

[larry]

Nice!

 

[adnedarn]

Awesome man, nice shot =) good luck indeed!

 

[uphwiz]

cool , do each kind of mantis make a different type of case ? or does this one just make its different, can you identify the mantis by the case?
do they have as many babies as the Chinese Mantis three hundred to five hundred per case?

---------- Post added at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 PM ----------

she got them both? boo! hoo!

 

[larry]

Mantis make various different looking ooths. They come in all sizes and shapes. The ghost mantis ooth might hatch out about 30 or so nymphs. A Chinese or European ooth may hatch out over 100 nymphs.

 

[swords]

Even though they don't have as many babies per egg case according to the guy I got them from claims his female has made about 30 egg cases in the year and some months he'd had his female mature so that comes out to a whole lotta babies even if only half of 'em live. So if the ooth is fertile there will be live babies available for trades or whatever first and probably later ooths - which can be hit or miss on hatching.

If the egg case isn't fertile then I'll need a new mature male (who won't get left in the tank too long) they made it a week together though and one of the days before I left for work her ovipositor or last abdomen segment was red and was aimed at the males head and his antennae were buzzing and twitching like crazy so hopefully something happened while I was gone. That display could have been her releasing mating pheromones.