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!