Wandering Violin Mantis (Gongylus gongylodes)

Description

Short care sheet for Wandering Violin Mantis:

Origin: Southern India/Sri Lanka

Size: up to 11 cm

Temperature: 30-40C day / up to 20C night

Humidity: 50-60%, spraying 1-3 times a week

Difficulty Level: Moderate

Wandering Violin Mantis is another remarkable and most probably famous species – its name refers to wooden string instrument as its body shape looks very similar (see pictures).

This is not the beginner level species to keep, it is very shy and can be easily scared by your motions or with large feeding objects (or their amount), also it needs high day temperatures with temperature swing up to 20C at night time for proper development.

Another thing is that Wandering Violin Mantis is specialised predator – it preys on flying insects (like flies etc) and feeding with other insects is not good for its health. Because of this aspect you must feed them pretty often – at least every other day and this is important not to put too many feeding insects in cage at once as they will make stress to the mantis. So they need your time and patience.

Keeping conditions for Wandering Violin Mantis is the same, they just need feeding objects of relevant sizes – fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster and D. hydei with switching to Green Bottle Flies and other flying insects.

The good news regards feeding specialisation of this species is that it is completely communal, so you can keep them in the group and have no fear they will eat each other.

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