Sibylla prestiosa - African lichen mantis
family Sibyllidae Stål, 1872
genus Sibylla Stål, 1856
subgenus Sibylla Stål, 18569
species Sibylla pretiosa Stål, 1856
This is the second time for me breeding this species. The first time (See http://www.usamantis.com/SPrestiosa_log.html) ended up
with only a fertile adult female which continue to produce ootheca continuously eventhough she has ran out of the spermatozoa kept in
the spermatophore as her last few oothecae either produced few hatchlings or none.
Early in the year I have the chance to trade the oothecae of this species from South Africa and it promptly hatched in 2 weeks.
The hatchlings grow up rather quick with plenty of wild fruit flies and heat.
However, about two molts away from being adult, the growth is suddenly stalled. My guess is that this species could possibly
experience a diapauses during a cold spell in South Africa and do not grow again until the next Spring. That coincides with the
Southern Hemisphere weather pattern.
So I left the group of medium size S. prestiosa without food for 3 weeks in my theater room which received very little light (short period
of time in a day) and the room is also cooler (70F). I seldom mist the mantis during that period.
Amazingly they all seem to do well in that condition, indicating the diapauses might be the case here. After the third week, I removed
the cage from the room and proceed to warm it up little by little over the next week (to about 85F max).
Surpringly their appetite come back immediately especially with plenty of misting and longer daylight hour. Despite being more active
now, the mantids still take a long time before reaching adult. Most of them take about 5 months to mature. However, it doesn’t take the
matured female very long be receptive under plenty of food and heat.
Some females will actually started to produce ootheca in as little as 2 weeks after maturing. Although this species appear to be
sociable, females do attack the male when I tried to pair them up. Cannibalism also took place where I lost several adult males. But in
most cases, males managed to mate with females.
Once mated, adult female will continue to deposit oothecae. Females are able to produce as many as 15-20 oothecae during her life
span. When well fed, female can produce two oothecae in as little as 4-5 days. Sometimes I will leave the female in the cage for 2
weeks and come back to the this!
ootheca are being kept at around 80-85F/60% incubating condition. After about 30 days, ootheca will start to hatch. Depending on the
ootheca size, about 20-40 nymphs will hatch from the ootheca and the life cycle is completed. Currently I have plenty of freshly hatch
out nymphs capable of feeding fruit flies. In another 10 days I should see them molting into 2nd instar.
