Chinese Praying Mantis (LIVE) -- (Educational or Insect Control) -- L4 to L5

Description

You will receive:
(1) Healthy Chinese Praying Mantis at the  L-4 to L5 Stage.
We put a lot of care into raising the mantis to this stage.  They are now big and very healthy.
Cost includes heat pack when necessary.
Helpful Care Instructions
The Chinese mantis is a fantastic species for the beginner, proving one of the easiest to keep in captivity. Not only is it large, but very tame, and will tolerate handling.  Diet is no problem, and shedding problems will rarely occur.  Overall, the Tenodera is a fantastic species, much recommended!  Being a tame species, it is great for the beginner, and its ootheca hatches a vast amount of nymphs!
If you choose to hatch your own nymphs, please see our Chinese Mantis Ootheca Kits.
The Chinese Ootheca Egg hatches a vast amount of nymphs!
These mantis are recommended for garden pest control, classroom projects or personal pets.
Chinese Mantis Care
Accommodation:
This species of mantis will survive in fair conditions. It's best to keep it around 20-26 C (68-78.8 F). Room temperature will work best. Warmer temperature speeds up the metabolism of the mantis and will shorten its life span and in contrast, cooler temperature slows its metabolism and lengthens the life span, but both extremes could kill it. Humidity should be around 60-65%. This could be achieved by spraying or watering the substrate 3 times a week. The main purpose of humidity is to help the mantis molt too much humidity will cripple the mantis during molts, and too little will hinder it from emerging from the old skin.  Just make sure it doesn't get too dry or too damp.
Caging:
This species is quite large. The suggested height is usually 3x the mantis length and 2x for width. They require sticks and leaves for perching and to hang from for molting and catching insects. They are very active and may need some space to roam around or to pursue their prey so adjust caging according to their size.
Feeding:
This species eats very well. They are not picky. Crickets, cockroaches (nymphs),caterpillars, moths and butterflies (as long as they are not poisonous; you can will know by their bright colors) and then you have the house fly (which is an excellent food source).  They will begin to eat these other insects as they grow past L-9 to L-10 stage, and most generally, you can feed them anything else that will fit in its claws. It's recommended that the size of the feeder insect does not exceed 1/3 the mantis length. Even though they are voracious and will attack anything, do not offer them poisonous insects or wasps or bees as these could seriously harm the mantis.
You can either drop the food inside the tank and if the mantis is hungry, it will go after the prey or you can feed them by hand: Use a pair of tweezers to hold the cricket and wave it in front of the mantis.  If it's hungry, it will turn its head to stare directly at the insect and will snatch it from the tweezers or you may need to pierce the insect and put it to the mantis mouth and if it likes the taste, it'll grab on to it and begin to feed. Do not overfeed them, overfeeding will shorten their life span also. Feed them as much as it will eat in one day and do not feed it for another 2 days. As for watering, mantids get their water from their prey, but lightly mist the enclosure every couple of days, and occasionally, a mantis will drink off of droplets from a branch or a side of the tank. This also helps keep humidity levels safe.
Molting:
A mantis will stop eating a day or 2 (sometimes more) prior to its molt. Do not be alarmed if one day your mantis is chowing down on a cricket and the next it refuses its food, it's simply getting ready to shed its skin. Mantids molt every 2-3 weeks as babies and the time in between each molt increases as they get older so their last molt into adulthood can sometimes take as long as 3-4 weeks. It takes about 7 molts for females and about 6 for males. That's why males tend to mature earlier than females and they also die faster. During molts, it is vital that you do not disturb them. The mantis will hang upside down from a branch or the screen lid and will sometimes shake or spasm violently. Then after a while, it worms out of its old skin and will hang out to dry. Once it's dried, it will resume eating and being its normal self after a couple days. To ensure their safety, mist them every day while young nymphs to prevent any blockade during molting.
Reproduction:
This species is very easy to breed. Pair up a male and a female 2 weeks after their last molt and if they are ready, the male will try to climb on the female to initiate breeding. Be sure that both sexes are well fed prior to mating. And before mating, it is advised to give the female a food item to busy herself with while the male tries to mate with her. Afterwards, he will run away, leaving the female to make the eggs.
Please track your package for delivery.  Thank you.
Since ship time is critical for your LIVE item, we will now be shipping LIVE items using FEDEX 2 day GUARANTEED Express.  This will increase the shipping cost a bit but is well worth it.  We want your Live purchase to arrive Live and Healthy.
African Praying Mantis L3 stage. Educational and Easy To Care For Pet- Gets Big!
Payment
Shipping
Returns
PayPal is the preferred payment method.
We take great care packaging every item to ensure safe shipment to you. We charge a shipping fee only to cover our costs of materials and labor. Once your order has been processed and we have received cleared payment, your item will be dispatched within one day. WE QUICK SHIP!
Genuinely faulty goods will be replaced or money refunded, however we must be advised of any faulty goods upon receipt of the item.
It is the customers responsibility to pay for and ship the item back to us.
It is the customers responsibility to make sure addresses and zip codes are accurate.
Someone must be available to accept packages with live insects the day they arrive.
In cold or very hot weather it is the customers responsibility to make sure live insects are not left out in mail boxes or any other area outside their home.
In the event there is a problem with your live insect purchase we must be contacted within 6 hours of the insects arrival and photos must supplied. No exceptions.
We will do our best to see you have a enjoyable experience while shopping at Insect Sales com.
We are Insect Sales com
We're a genuine seller offering quality items at lower prices. Every item is carefully packaged using the latest technology to ensure safe shipment to you. Our family has spent over four decades in the pet trade. We owned two pet stores, a large animal shelter and we spent years breeding tropical fish, amphibians, reptiles and tropical birds. With this much breeding we have also worked at maintaining a lot of live insects and worms. There is not enough to space here to tell you about all the different types of worms and insects we worked with but we would like all of our viewers to know we would be honored to share our knowledge of insect care with you simply email us your requests. All insects we sell on eBay are raised under controlled conditions. If you are in the market for good clean insects and worms please give us a try. You will not be disappointed. Enjoy your visit! The Staff at Insect Sales com
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