Mantis...How intelligent do they get?
 

I have a mantis shrimp in my tank which I rescued from a piece of liverock about 8 months ago. It was the size of a large amphipod when I got it, and it's now 2 1/2". She's quite intelligent. I trained her to come to pick the food from the pipette, and she pick a few mysis from it and run back into her cave.

For the last few days she was not coming, and I did not see her at all. So today I put some mysis shrimps in front of her cave and the current took them inside the liverock cave. I was waiting to see if she would come out but she did not and I thougth she might be dead, but suddendly she came out of there with a mysis and threw it back at me. She went back inside the cave and got another mysis and threw it at me and she did that for the 3 mysis I had put there, one by one.

My gues is that she's molting so she does not want to eat but rather then letting those mysis rot inside the liverock cracks, she returned them to me. I picked them up with the pipette and she went back inside her cave.

I was quite impressed that she did not simply let those inside to rot there. She also have many entrances to her large cave so she could have pitched the mysis out through other openings but each time she returned to the front door and pitched the mysis in my direction. It was really cute :)

I thought that was quite intelligent of her :)

Have you had a mantis do something intelligent? if so, what was it? I would love to hear your mantis story!

They are really smart. I even taught my peacock mantis how to flush the toilet

Ha. Haha. Can't stop giggling. Hehe hahahahahaha HAAA!! I don't think the creator of this thread is as amused as I am.

+1 :)

they don't get smart, they have some neat quirks about them but as far as intelligence there a bug. :mrgreen: I had my two for 4 years, more interactive than a fish but nothing I would call intelligence.

Steve

I dunno, mine stuck his head in the return pump, that was pretty smart...

Awww it was checking the impeller for you!

if he got himself out of the return pump and survived, I'd say he was pretty smart. lol

He wasn't that smart, unfortunately...

Really? I read a few times they were intelligent. Sure is not the same as a dog of course but I thought they were more intelligent than a bug.

Another thing that surprise me is that it recognize me and only come out when it is me. I tried to give the pipette to my boyfriend to feed it a couple of times but it would not come out for him. Then I would take the pipette and he would need to back off and the mantis would come out and pick the food from the pipette. Not sure why but it does not seem to trust other people.