Being able to catch a glimpse of a hatching ootheca is always a wonderful sight. Although i must admit it is a nightmare for all the fruit flies!!
Creoberoter gemmatus is a nice looking flower mantis originally live in South eastern and East Asia. This species is easy to breed and care for. The mated female produces egg cases called ootheca (Pronounce as "Ooh"-"T"-"Ka"). The ootheca could contain about 40-100 eggs depending on the ootheca size and usually hatch out in the morning around 7-9 AM. Recently, it has been a usual sight for me to see hundreds of the mantis babies greeting me every morning as I have plenty of oothecae incubating. Last Sunday, I have decided to wake up early to photograph the moment of hatching. I was not dissappointed when one decided to hatch right at about 8 AM.
Watching each of them squeezing the body out like a grub and immediately molt out into first instar takes only few minutes, but that is probably the most crucial moment in their life. In captivity, few might not strong enough to even emerge from the ootheca and die hanging on the ootheca. Some may be able to wiggle out but fail to molt and perish. in the wild, there is also the danger of being attacked by ants, birds, spiders, wasps, or even their own kind as cannibalism is common for mantids. From there on, the hatchling will feed on the fruit flies until they are large enough to handle larger prey like house fly or blow fly. The mantis will continue to molt for another 6-8 times - depending on gender and species - before reaching adult when wings are observed, and the mantis stop to molt. With TLC, a large portion of mantis can achieve adulthood in captivity, but i cannot imagine how they are able to survive the tough condition in the wild. Probably only 1 out of 100 managed to survive and mature in the wild. Sometimes i think human are just like the praying mantis in the wild. Each trying hard to survive, and although we do not practice cannibalism, people do not hesitate to even sabotage each other to come out top. Unless you are born with silver spoon in your mouth you will always need to work hard, and those lucky one are just like the mantis being kept in captivity. Ha... how ironic.
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