If a mantis is fairly large, with nice sharp forelegs, its possible to cause a bit of scratch damage to the chameleon. Some people therefore remove those legs. Poor mantis.
The two sp. you're posting about are always seen as prey items in wild footage! I strongly agree these two types of insects are good for them.
Not sure what the mantids eat in the wild in maddy, but the phasmids I'm sure eat just a few sp. of plant matter.
I get chinese ooths, very cheap on ebay, hatch them out, and feed them off to my baby panther chameleons.
Chinese oothecae hatch on average, 200 nymphs. 75% of these nymphs die after the first few days, so better use these when you have a good size clutch of babies.
Plus Chinese oothecae can be stored in the fridge which is awesome. This sp. is found in NJ, I recently found an adult male!
I've fed $40.00 mantid nymphs to some of my panthers because the expensive mantids mis molted horribly. LOL Cannot believe some of my male panthers have got the pleasure to eat a large, expensive mantis!
I trim off their claws, just because they have sharp teeth-like spikes.
Unfortunately stick bugs aren't sold openly on American forums.
For any of those who live in a warm climate, getting Chinese oothecae and releasing some is always a plus!
Next summer I am going to hang up 40 or more Chinese oothecae on my deck, hoping I will see more than 1 adult by September!
Yeah I tried to release some and see if I could catch them later. I never saw any after the 1st day of release. But i only hatched 2 sacs. If you do 40 sacs you should see some i would think. Or else every bird and anole in the neighborhod will be hanging at your house.
lol yeah I hear yeah, not many Anoles in NJ though, however, birds are abundant!
Right down the street from my house, is a dead end that leads to a big park, that also is close to a school with tons of wooded areas.
Since they'll hatch right in my backyard, I bet a lot of them will get to the more wooded area.
I should totally hatch another 30 or so Ooths around a couple parks.
Chinese oothecae are extremely cheap during the spring time so I am sure I could get them at like $.75 cents per ooth.
I always get a sad feeling when I find a dead mantis here in NJ, and it was obviously stepped on with force. Totally flattened. Everytime I find one dead, it is dead because of a human.
I only found one full grown adult mantis this year. Ive found/caught quite a few of the large 2-3" katydids though. My guys go crazy for them. Its just starting to get cool down here. I figure i got a good month or so of collecting time left. Then its strictly store bought or home grown bugs for a while....
many years ago I bought an egg sac and threw them out in the bushes hoping that they'd finish off the aphids on my roses... not too long after I saw one GIANT praying mantis, and never ever saw one again prior to or after that.... good to think that it did indeed hatch!, right?