How to tell if your Mantis Shrimp is Male (a boy)
After being asked, and me actually asking this question long ago, I decided to post a thread to help people discover the gender of a mantis shrimp. There's no real detail on telling if the shrimp is a girl, all you will see are two spots on the underbelly where the male parts will be. But seeing if a mantis is male is rather easy and obvious, if you know where to look.
Using my handy dandy touch screen laptop, I drew up a professional grade diagram on discerning the male parts of a mantis. Well, ok, it looks like a 3rd grader did it, but Bo our larger mantis is camera shy when it comes to this subject so this is what you get.
![[IMG]](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi22.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fb337%2FJ_Win%2Fmantismale.jpg&hash=4c5e657985259a4cdc113e176b3bb41f "[IMG]")
The male parts of a mantis have been described as two sticks in a "V" shape right behind the last set of walking legs, or right in front of the first swimmate (swimmy kicky shrimpy thing, you know what it is). Hopefully this picture helps you see exactly what it is. What you need to see in the picture is in red. That's what you're looking for with a male mantis, and no, they aren't red in real life.
Luckily enough, there is a split second in a video I have of Bo where he unknowingly flashes the camera.
Between 0:11 seconds and 0:15 seconds, there are brief glimpses of Bo's male distinguishing features, and now that you see where they are and what they look like, and if you watch the video enough times, you should be able to see the split second views of them to help you out.
Obviously if a mantis does not have these features (they're pretty obvious on any mantis), it is female OR it is too young to properly sex. For Peacock mantis, you should be able to determine the sex after the mantis reaches 2+ inches long. For other, smaller species, you should be able to sex them after 1/2 to 3/4" in length. It's quite uncommon to find mantis this small, so most are safe in saying that if they do not see the uropods twig things in the V shape under a mantis, it is female. If you see the underbelly of a female mantis, she will have two spots in place of male parts. I have had both a male and female mantis in our house at the same time (in different tanks of course), and Princess did not have anything like what Bo's got. So I'm glad I named her Princess.
However, 3reef's very own Schackmel had a Peacock mantis live his life under the name of "Bob", only to discover that Bob layed eggs and was a girl.
And there you have it. Mantis Gender Identification 101. Or perhaps this is less than 101...either way you know what to look for and where.
This article was originally published by =jwin= on 3reef.com (all rights reserved).
After being asked, and me actually asking this question long ago, I decided to post a thread to help people discover the gender of a mantis shrimp. There's no real detail on telling if the shrimp is a girl, all you will see are two spots on the underbelly where the male parts will be. But seeing if a mantis is male is rather easy and obvious, if you know where to look.
Using my handy dandy touch screen laptop, I drew up a professional grade diagram on discerning the male parts of a mantis. Well, ok, it looks like a 3rd grader did it, but Bo our larger mantis is camera shy when it comes to this subject so this is what you get.
The male parts of a mantis have been described as two sticks in a "V" shape right behind the last set of walking legs, or right in front of the first swimmate (swimmy kicky shrimpy thing, you know what it is). Hopefully this picture helps you see exactly what it is. What you need to see in the picture is in red. That's what you're looking for with a male mantis, and no, they aren't red in real life.
Luckily enough, there is a split second in a video I have of Bo where he unknowingly flashes the camera.
Between 0:11 seconds and 0:15 seconds, there are brief glimpses of Bo's male distinguishing features, and now that you see where they are and what they look like, and if you watch the video enough times, you should be able to see the split second views of them to help you out.
Obviously if a mantis does not have these features (they're pretty obvious on any mantis), it is female OR it is too young to properly sex. For Peacock mantis, you should be able to determine the sex after the mantis reaches 2+ inches long. For other, smaller species, you should be able to sex them after 1/2 to 3/4" in length. It's quite uncommon to find mantis this small, so most are safe in saying that if they do not see the uropods twig things in the V shape under a mantis, it is female. If you see the underbelly of a female mantis, she will have two spots in place of male parts. I have had both a male and female mantis in our house at the same time (in different tanks of course), and Princess did not have anything like what Bo's got. So I'm glad I named her Princess.
And there you have it. Mantis Gender Identification 101. Or perhaps this is less than 101...either way you know what to look for and where.
This article was originally published by =jwin= on 3reef.com (all rights reserved).
