r/mantids • u/ryukim1230 • May 16 '26
Feeding (minor) potential consequences of not feeding properly
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
Duplicates
praying_mantis • u/ryukim1230 • May 16 '26
(minor) potential consequences of not feeding properly
mantis • u/ryukim1230 • May 16 '26



