Here's the female Ghost Mantis:
Detail: She was naughty, she ate her mate! Despite eating like a maniac she was able to stuff a mantid her own size on top of a dozen flies and a giant cricket. She was in with the male for almost a week and one day she was sitting with her back to the male with a red ovipositor and both were twitching their antennae intently so hopefully there was some mating going on before she gobbled him down. "Communal" my arse! LOL
In more non-communal "communal species" ...
Here's a top pic of a female Red Vampire Crab (unidentified Geosesarma sp.).
News: I forgot to take a pic of her underside, but you can see her claws are not very big. She has decided she wants to live in a burrow way up high on the mud wall/cliff background of the tank about 15" above the ground and water feature. I took her down after she spent two days up there but she went right back to the same spot in the English Baby's Tears clump mounted on the background at the top of the tank so I'm inclined to leave her there.
Here's the underside of a juvenile male that I introduced to her tank:
detail: Notice how male Vampire Crab claws are larger/more powerful overall and he has a skinny "6 pack" abs when seen from below (the triangle). The female's abdomen stretches across the whole bottom side. The wide abdominal flap is where the females carry the eggs through full development and then give live birth to up to 40 pups which some vampire crab species carry around on their heads/backs until the pups are old enough to separate. But it's been said that these newly discovered Red sp. release the babies right away and do not care for their young at all so I am dividing my large colony from the 40 gallon N. ampullaria display into 3 or 4 small vivariums to make spotting/collecting babies easier and also to ease territorial aggression. Everyone says these were communal but not enough enough to my liking. I have seen chasing and some fighting so I am dividing them up before I loose any to having too many mature males in close quarters. Perhaps the more common purple and orange Vampire Crabs (G. bicolor) are more communal than the Red.
Detail: She was naughty, she ate her mate! Despite eating like a maniac she was able to stuff a mantid her own size on top of a dozen flies and a giant cricket. She was in with the male for almost a week and one day she was sitting with her back to the male with a red ovipositor and both were twitching their antennae intently so hopefully there was some mating going on before she gobbled him down. "Communal" my arse! LOL
In more non-communal "communal species" ...
Here's a top pic of a female Red Vampire Crab (unidentified Geosesarma sp.).
News: I forgot to take a pic of her underside, but you can see her claws are not very big. She has decided she wants to live in a burrow way up high on the mud wall/cliff background of the tank about 15" above the ground and water feature. I took her down after she spent two days up there but she went right back to the same spot in the English Baby's Tears clump mounted on the background at the top of the tank so I'm inclined to leave her there.
Here's the underside of a juvenile male that I introduced to her tank:
detail: Notice how male Vampire Crab claws are larger/more powerful overall and he has a skinny "6 pack" abs when seen from below (the triangle). The female's abdomen stretches across the whole bottom side. The wide abdominal flap is where the females carry the eggs through full development and then give live birth to up to 40 pups which some vampire crab species carry around on their heads/backs until the pups are old enough to separate. But it's been said that these newly discovered Red sp. release the babies right away and do not care for their young at all so I am dividing my large colony from the 40 gallon N. ampullaria display into 3 or 4 small vivariums to make spotting/collecting babies easier and also to ease territorial aggression. Everyone says these were communal but not enough enough to my liking. I have seen chasing and some fighting so I am dividing them up before I loose any to having too many mature males in close quarters. Perhaps the more common purple and orange Vampire Crabs (G. bicolor) are more communal than the Red.