davelin315 February 18, 2009 Share February 18, 2009 OK, as I posted earlier, Billy Bachman at stomatopod.com was kind enough to donate a couple of mantis shrimp to us at Floris. He sent two of them, a Haptosquilla stoliura and a Odontodactylus scyllarus. The first one was a smaller specimen that Billy chose for us because it was very active. It was a smasher and, as advertised, very active, although it ended up being too active. It ended up popping the shipping bag and survived for a day after I acclimated it by shoving it into my reef system in order to revive it. The other one, the O. scyllarus, is the famed peacock mantis. This one is doing well and is now in my classroom. It's living in a 15 gallon tall tank with some larger chunks of substrate (it's actually the fine media from my calcium reactor) mixed together with some large chunks of live rock rubble, a scoop of my crushed coral, and some small pieces of live rock. Here's a picture of the tank itself, which has 2 hang on back filters for water movement and a simple normal output fluorescent fixture. This is located near the door to the classroom near a group of student desks. Here are some shots of the mantis itself, including its tail and where it sometimes hangs out in the back. I didn't get a chance to take photos of it as it roams the tank but it has already started to come out to interact with the kids, although its timing is horrible as it has come out in the middle of science a few times to roam around and the kids are all still so excited that the whole class jumps out of their seats and runs over to the tank. Here's it's first meal in the classroom. We took a hermit crab that was in a turbo snail shell and added it to the tank. After a few minutes of crawling around, the mantis attacked, grabbed it, and dragged it under the rocks where he worked on it for several hours, slowly cracking the shell away until it got to the hermit crab itself. It then slowly dismantled the hermit crab, knocking its legs off one at a time until there was nothing left. This was yesterday and today, this is all that was left of the shell. We were all pretty impressed with the power of the mantis as the turbo shell was pretty thick and it bashed out enough of it to get to the crab itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 February 23, 2009 Author Share February 23, 2009 Went over the structural and behavioral adaptations in class today of a mantis shrimp by using Roy Caldwell's site to research the mantis. It was interesting talking to the kids about how a stomatopod can see 16 different visual pigments while we see only 3, that the stomatopods have stereo vision out of each individual eye, and how they have polarized vision as well. One of the neater things was learning that they are sending signals with their antennal scales and uropods that can only be seen with polarized filters. The kids also learned about how they have evolved to communicate with each other so that they don't go into extinction through fighting each other. Our mantis has also become much more outgoing and has been hanging out outside of its cave a lot more, roaming the tank and displaying more often. We'll do another feeding (we fed it two fiddler crabs on Friday, one that it ate and the other that it ate over the weekend) and watch and observe as it hunts down the prey and eats it. If we have a chance, we'll also try and video the hunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay February 25, 2009 Share February 25, 2009 Very cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 17, 2009 Author Share March 17, 2009 The mantis has been doing well in the classroom and has become more outgoing over the past week or so. It even decided to start clicking in the middle of class the other day which really got the kids worked up. Here's some pictures of it eating a piece of shrimp from today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onyx March 17, 2009 Share March 17, 2009 Awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugar Magnolia March 19, 2009 Share March 19, 2009 That is so cool! Are the folks at stomapods going to send you another mantis to replace the one you lost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishyTim March 19, 2009 Share March 19, 2009 Very cool, lucky kids.. That is so cool! Are the folks at stomapods going to send you another mantis to replace the one you lost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoyden March 19, 2009 Share March 19, 2009 You might want to show your students Sheila Patek's video on the speed of mantis strikes - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sheila_...st_animals.html and listen to Roy Caldwell's research lecture that talks about his work with Mantis Shrimp which you can download from iTunes iUniversity (UC Berkeley integrative biology animal behavior coursespring 2006). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 19, 2009 Author Share March 19, 2009 Thanks for the info, do you know what level the lecture is at? The kids might not have any idea what he's talking about... As far as sending a replacement, he comped us on the two stomatopods he sent, so I didn't even ask him about that. The shipping cost was my own and I probably won't pay to ship again as that exhausts what I have on my own personal budget for spending! By the way, I saw some new communication today between the mantis and a student. He kept on sticking his elbow to the tank and the mantis would come out and investigate every time... at least until he got in trouble for not paying attention! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugar Magnolia March 25, 2009 Share March 25, 2009 By the way, I saw some new communication today between the mantis and a student. He kept on sticking his elbow to the tank and the mantis would come out and investigate every time... at least until he got in trouble for not paying attention! Ooops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsarvis March 25, 2009 Share March 25, 2009 That's cool, Dave! I saw a mantis shrimp over at Wally's a couple days ago. Was tempted to get it, but I didn't. If anyone's interested in getting one, this one looked pretty healthy/active and was fairly sizeable already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 26, 2009 Author Share March 26, 2009 Decided to pilfer more rock from my home system (was taking in rock that has caulerpa on it for the sea horse tank and decided to take almost all of it with me to add a splash of color since I have some red mushrooms from Dave Sandstrom that fell off when I was holding shrooms for the school tanks) and reaquascape the tank today. The mantis was already irritated with me because I did this a couple of days ago, but since all of the rock was base rock I decided to add some with some color and life on it. I rebuilt the cave he was in and blocked off side entrances so that he comes to the front of the tank and then added the rock on top of the pile along with some softies. Just noticed the aiptasia... will have to zap that one tomorrow... The holes are buried with rubble right now as I want it to dig out its burrow and exit through one hole in a piece of tufa rock. I'll have the kids post some of their blogs tomorrow, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 October 23, 2009 Author Share October 23, 2009 The mantis weathered the summer really well! It was hosted by a family that hosted a tank for me a couple of years ago and this was a completely different experience for them. They really enjoyed discovering the behavior of the mantis and had it very tamed by the end of summer to the point where it sat out of its burrow almost all of the time and waited like a dog to be fed! The family especially enjoyed the fact that they found out that the color blue is an irritant to this particular mantis and that when it sees a specific color of blue it begins to ricochet around the tank and go crazy. They also had the opportunity to watch it molt, describing it as slowly turning black over the course of a day and then regaining it's color as soon as it shed. I got to go over and take a look, too, but missed the actual molting process. Curiously, the mantis spent a lot of time laying on its back after the molt and on its side, letting its swimmerettes pull water past its body, possibly in an attempt to speed up the hardening process for its exoskeleton? Again, same as the other thread, no access to the site at school, but I'll try and get some pictures and post them up here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 October 28, 2009 Author Share October 28, 2009 Here's a power point that was done by one of my students on the mantis shrimp with help from Mike Henley. As you can tell by the presentation, the kids are quite fond of animations in Power Point! Mantis_Shrimp_brandon.ppt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay October 29, 2009 Share October 29, 2009 (edited) Here's a power point that was done by one of my students on the mantis shrimp with help from Mike Henley. As you can tell by the presentation, the kids are quite fond of animations in Power Point! Crazy animations. I had to turn them off before I got past the first page. BTW, I've noticed my chiragra likes to lay on his back and curls up a little bit when threatened or scared. I think it is his natural defensive position, which seems odd, but he does it all the time when I scare him. Maybe yours was just being extra defensive because it was more vulnerable. Edited October 29, 2009 by extreme_tooth_decay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 November 25, 2009 Author Share November 25, 2009 Per Tim's request, we filmed the mantis eating a goldfish today. It didn't strike as much, but you can clearly see that they are not simply crustacean eaters - they will eat anything that moves in their tank. I didn't realize how big ours is compared to those of others, but perhaps they become less disciminate eaters as they grow older. This one is definitely big and it didn't make much of a strike. Didn't do such a great job with the video, but this was a test case to see if the kids would be able to film it. I did it with one hand, next time I'll let the kids produce, edit, and post the video for us to watch and also add more educational impact to the video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay November 25, 2009 Share November 25, 2009 Per Tim's request, we filmed the mantis eating a goldfish today. It didn't strike as much, but you can clearly see that they are not simply crustacean eaters - they will eat anything that moves in their tank. I didn't realize how big ours is compared to those of others, but perhaps they become less disciminate eaters as they grow older. This one is definitely big and it didn't make much of a strike. Didn't do such a great job with the video, but this was a test case to see if the kids would be able to film it. I did it with one hand, next time I'll let the kids produce, edit, and post the video for us to watch and also add more educational impact to the video. nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 November 26, 2009 Author Share November 26, 2009 Here's the photobucket link, too. One thing I noticed is that it didn't crack the goldfish with its raptorial appendages this time, it simply grabbed it and brought it back to its cave. If you could actually see into the cave, it basically ripped it in half with its mouth as it ate it. The kids were incredibly quiet with this so we could hear the snap, but it didn't happen this time. We're getting some emerald crabs from Fins and Feathers, so we'll see post some student videos when that happens. Anyone seen crayfish at a local baitshop? The kids really want to see just how powerful these guys are. I know the emeralds have thick shells, but we want to see how it does against a lobster-like crustacean. By the way, if you've got any nuisance crabs you want to donate, we're here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8 2 RISE November 26, 2009 Share November 26, 2009 I could easily catch a few for you if you want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay November 27, 2009 Share November 27, 2009 I have bought crayfish at a fish store in DC for my mantis. They cost like $2, and they have a variety of sizes, including some really big ones. If you want, I can look up the address, but it is a long way for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 December 7, 2009 Author Share December 7, 2009 On Friday we began using a flip cam to do some video taping of an experiment that we're doing. We'll put it together and then post it when it's done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 December 7, 2009 Author Share December 7, 2009 Picked up a bunch of emerald crabs from Sean at F&F for mantis food - thanks a ton! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 December 11, 2009 Author Share December 11, 2009 We continue to acclimate the mantis shrimp to our experiment (it's a bit afraid of what we're doing so we're leaving some things in the tank for it to get used to) and will post up a video when we finish, but for the time being, here's a clip of feeding the mantis an emerald crab today. The kids really get into this and are working on their camera angles so we had some great footage today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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